


i messed up last night

by Anry, Romantic Universe (annstis)



Category: EXO (Band), Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crimes & Criminals, English, F/F, Medical Inaccuracies, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Wounds, mafia, side Chanyeol/Wendy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 08:28:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 43,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15139151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anry/pseuds/Anry, https://archiveofourown.org/users/annstis/pseuds/Romantic%20Universe
Summary: A devoted med student Kim Yerim makes a wrong turn from her usual path just once, and from then nothing in her life is normal ever again. But getting to kiss Joy might be worth it.





	i messed up last night

**Author's Note:**

> Dear annstis, the fact that we’ve finished this is a miracle. Thank you for your ideas, your text, your corrections, your endless support. You are the best co-writer one can dream of and writing this was a pleasure. (Anry)
> 
> Anry, the most wonderful person to co-write with, thank you so so much for your tremendous input. You constantly push me forward. If not for your support and ideas, there wouldn't be any of this. (annstis)
> 
> Our dearest beta-reader, [Toshirei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toshirei), thank you for all your effort and wise comments. You have been a huge help we couldn't have done this without. We love you dearly.
> 
> Dear readers, for all the crimes against medicine and the English language that we have committed, we are deeply sorry. (Both of us)

***

The whole thing was just stupid from the very beginning. Yerim didn’t even plan to go to any party ever, especially at the beginning of the semester. She has chemistry classes tomorrow, and that’s not something you take lightly. But then again, she couldn’t really say no to Seungwan’s “don’t leave me alone” kind of puppy face. And, of course, Chanyeol absolutely had to be there, because he magically appears anywhere Seungwan goes. What a coincidence, right.

At some point they got drunk enough to start telling stories of “the bravest thing I’ve done”, and in Yerim’s life so far it was touching a corpse.

Which would be kinda cool, sure, if she wasn’t talking to a bunch of medical students that do the same thing on like a daily basis. And probably do not almost faint every time, while she totally did.

So that brings her here, Chanyeol being stupid but very imaginative, and Yerim also being stupid and very into challenges when drunk, apparently. She should maybe do something about her decision-making patterns.

Her mother always told her: if you do one thing wrong, everything which follows would be more and more wrong. At first Yerim thought it is just a scary story to prevent her from drinking alcohol with friends, but then she found out that her mother was just describing her own and Yerim’s karma, because that stupid thing always worked.

Late evening cold creeps up under Yerim’s shirt, making her shiver, but she wills herself to square her shoulders. She has no idea what kind of people live in sketchy areas, but for some reason — maybe because she’s still drunk — assumes it’s better that she looks as confident and menacing as possible.

And she is just. Not going to think about the sketchiness any longer. She has a purpose. (Not really, but like, a short-term goal). She needs to find whatever _illegal business_ thing Chanyeol pulled out of his ass.

It’s just stupid, Yerim thinks for a dozenth time, and stomps her feet with a new wave of anger. She isn’t even angry with Chanyeol, but mostly with her stupid self. She wasn’t even that drunk to begin with, but still believed in Chanyeol’s stories, and what’s worse, went out at night alone to god knows where just to prove something to the drunk almost-boyfriend of her best friend. Way to go with your life, Yerim.

She almost decides to turn back, but when she does, she notices three obscure figures detach themselves from suspicious-looking shadows (the figures also look suspicious, but Yerim is _not_ going to think about it), and Yerim thinks briefly, that, in hindsight, she should’ve maybe been quieter. Still confident and menacing, but just quiet.

So Yerim is not, by far, completely defenceless. And yet she is not exactly ready to face three men who are definitely heading to her. Not even one, to be completely honest.

What's she gonna do, poke them with syringes?

If only.

Anyway, maybe they just want a friendly conversation? Or they are lost and want to know their way? It is not like people get murdered often in Busan. Her mind helpfully supplies that she can always become the first one.

"Hey," one of them says, swallowing the sounds. His eyes are— weird. He looks at her and simultaneously doesn't look at anything at all, like his vision is unfocused. Yerim doesn’t wanna investigate further and looks at her feet, not slowing down her pace.

She pushes past them, but the other guy, tall and gangling, kind of like Chanyeol but an actual creep, grabs her arm, and Yerim suddenly understands what it’s like to jump out of your own skin. She tries to pull her arm out of his hand but he holds on so tight it’s almost painful. He says something, and they laugh, but Yerim doesn’t hear them for a moment over the noise of blood rushing in her ears.

What does she do. What does she do.

Scream and kick someone in the balls, and then run, because they’re probably drunk, or worse, so they won’t follow. Yerim’s voice forces past her closed-up throat, but then something else happens, and the guy releases her suddenly when she pulls again, and she stumbles a few steps forward.

“What’s up guys? Kinda late to be out, don’t you think?” she hears behind her, definitely a girl’s voice, clear and loud and harsh.

When Yerim turns, she catches the look of pure horror on a guy’s face, stripped off the drunken haziness.

“Hey, noona! Nothing at all,” their postures become defensive and they deflate a little. Even the tall one doesn’t seem as tall anymore. Yerim tries to force herself to run away while she still can, but she feels frozen.

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me. But if you get lost right away, I will go with that.”

One of the men tries to speak up and even straightens again, almost as if ready to fight, but the girl’s eyes him coldly and speaks again: “Do you want me to remember your faces, or what?”

The tall man speaks, raising his hands defensively, “No, noona. No mess wanted.”

Both the stranger girl and Yerim watch the men leave. Once they get lost in the very same shadows, Yerim feels the relief washing over her momentarily, but then the girl walks closer to her and Yerim freezes again.

The feeling of being lightheaded out of how surreal the whole thing is (although still might be soju) evaporates with geometric progression as she quickly relearns that she is still a) in the middle of nowhere, b) at night, c) now with a strange girl who scared a bunch of dudes just by being there. Yerim cowers under her gaze and looks down. The girl has high heels on, even taller than the ones Seungwan got herself last week.

“So?” her voice cuts through the quietness, echoing across the street.

Yerim jerks out of her— reverie of sorts (about freaking _shoes_ , really now, Yerim) and looks up again, blinking hard to get rid of nervous sparks in her eyes. Who is this girl? What got these guys so frightened? Why do they call her noona? She might be a murderer or something and Yerim might still need to run for her life. Like right now. If only her legs didn’t shake so bad.

The girl, still staring at her curiously, suddenly chuckles.

“You look like you saw a ghost. Are you okay? Did those guys do something?” her voice goes soft, different from what it was a minute ago.

“N-no. No, I am fine. I. Ah. Thank you?” Yerim’s voice comes out small and uncertain, shaking. God, and she still somehow managed to get herself in this mess. She could have been home, studying chemistry for tomorrow’s classes and not here in the middle of some spooky scary street with some girl, possibly a serial killer.

Still really pretty though, Yerim comes to realise when her heartbeat calms down a little and she looks closer. Like, some kind of model-pretty. Big sharp eyes carefully lined with black eyeliner, and soft lips of rich red color. Wow. Yerim would never wear such a bold lip color. It looks great on _her_ , though.

The strangest part, still, is not her appearance (those _heels_ ), but that she seems calm and sure, almost at ease even, like she isn’t scared at all. Not even uncomfortable with all what just happened. Which kinda proves she might be a serial killer. Yerim suddenly feels like she is staring creepily and tries to look away, but her eyes land on gorgeous long legs in tight black jeans and those impossible high heels. Yerim, in the back of her head, thinks that she’s never even seen a girl with legs so godlike in real life. Gosh. Why’d she even go out today.

“Hey, chill. That’s fine, I didn’t even do anything. Yet,” her laugh spreads over the vacant street. Yerim shivers, and the girl stops herself abruptly. “Are you really okay? That’s really not a nice place for a girl at night. Did you get lost?” she sounds sincerely concerned, and Yerim feels once again that she’s the one playing weirdo.

Okay, Kim Yerim, get your shit together and start a conversation. Don’t be a creep, you’ve already had your share of creeps for today, just don’t become one. You deal with corpses on daily basis, talking with a (very beautiful, still possibly a murderer) girl can’t be much worse. At least you know what happens to your body when it’s found dead.

If they ever find your body after today, that is.

“Um. Yeah. Kinda?” Yeah, the pep-talk wasn’t very motivational it seems. “Um. Sorry, no, I am not okay.”

The girl chuckles again, this time a quieter, gentler thing.

“I can see that.” The soft smile doesn’t suit her outfit at all, but it still looks really pretty, just like everything about her. “Okay. Let’s get you something hot to drink, it’s fucking freezing,” she takes Yerim by the elbow and gently but insistently leads her deeper into the neighbourhood. Yerim, despite common sense, follows. “So, what’s your name?”

“I am Yerim. Um, Kim Yerim. Sorry.” Jesus, what is she sorry for.

The girl turns around, looking back at her amusedly.

“Hey, I am not going to murder you or anything. Relax. You look even worse than before, should I be concerned about your health? Please don’t faint on me.”

“It’s the side effect of the hormones replying to the dangerous situation,” Yerim replies distractedly, way too occupied with relief to stop herself.

“What?” The girl looks surprised, even amused, her eyes even bigger.

“Adrenaline. It causes reduction of the bloodstream to the body surface to prepare body to run or defend. I am not going to faint, it is counter-productive to the purpose of adrenaline. But during adrenaline rush you can’t think straight cause it activates your amygdala.”

Reciting the textbooks have always helped Yerim to calm down.

The girl stares at her with her big impressive eyes and then laughs, bright and loud. Certainly not worried about being loud at all.

“God, are you some kind of a doctor or just a nerd?”

Yerim thinks back on the whole answer and laughs as well. Well, at least in this unfamiliar place she is also a nerd, which kinda grounds everything back to normal.

“A bit of both? I am on my fourth year of med school. And on my 23rd year of being a nerd.”

The girl smiles at her and all of Yerim’s thoughts narrow down to a single recurring one — that she is really pretty. Overwhelmingly so. So this is how things are nowadays, pretty girls walk around sketchy areas scaring creeps away?

Yerim is being tugged somewhere again and, looking up, she finally sees a vending machine at the street corner. The girl stops in front of it and ruffles through her bag, getting out a yellow ice-cream shaped coin wallet. She takes out a few coins, throws them in the vending machine and selects a hot coffee, then repeats the process. It’s only now that Yerim notices the way her hands are carefully bandaged. But the bandages do not look like they’re serving a medical purpose.

“I am Joy, by the way.”

“What?”

“My name. Joy.”

Yerim thinks for a little bit. Joy sounds like something a posh pretentious parent could pick for their child hoping that they one day become an idol or something.

“Like a real one?”

“Nah. I don’t use the real one much,” Joy says handing her a drink. It’s hot, and Yerim suddenly feels that she is very tired and cold. Adrenaline level is down again, and her senses come back to her gradually.

“Can we sit somewhere?” she asks, looking around meekly. It’s dark, she can’t make out much.

“Sure, there is a place nearby,” Joy tugs her by the elbow again, “let’s go.”

After they sit down on a bench next to some bar (the orange neon sign flickers quietly above it) Joy opens her coffee can and turns to Yerim.

“So? How’d you get here?”

Yerim feels her cheeks going bright red. Yeah, how did she get here. The story just seems really dumb now, when she is sober and already got in (and, possibly, out of) trouble. Why did she think it was a good idea, again?

Joy quietly listens to the short description of the evening, continuing to study Yerim, who self-consciously keeps tucking her hair behind her ear and wringing her hands together and smoothing down her shorts. She feels like this one time she got on a date with the boy she really liked and couldn’t even stop mumbling and telling medical jokes. He was from a literature department, so they never met again. At least there’s that.

“So, well, he told us that there is this night shop in Jung-gu. They work only at night somehow. Seems to be some kind of convenient store, I think? But, he also said they are well-known for selling drugs, so there is like a lot of creeps around and it’s really dangerous to go there. But apparently there is like the only place which actually sells discontinued Pepero types! So we made a bet that I’ll bring a box.”

Joy bursts into laughter.

“Seriously? Discontinued Pepero types? That is the way to get out of your house late at night and make you go out here?”

“Hey! Pepero is not the point! It was a bet!” Yerim says stubbornly, feeling that even her ears are burning now. Telling this story out loud makes it even worse than it seemed before.

“A bet on getting discontinued Pepero types?” Joy presses, amusement clear in her eyes.

Yerim nods and promptly looks down on her sneakers, embarrassed so much she actually would prefer the earth to break under her feet so she falls down somewhere where she will never be reminded of her own stupidity.

“Okay. We can’t let you lose that! Let’s get your Pepero!” Joy says standing up from a bench and gives Yerim a hand. Yerim just stares.

“What? Do you mean it wasn’t a lie?”

Joy shrugs but keeps her hand out, so Yerim takes it and stands up, and almost falls back right away, but Joy’s strong hand keeps her upright.

(Yerim is. _Not_ going to think about her strong hands. God.)

“Okay? I can just take you home if you want.” Joy pouts a bit, like taking her to a store was the best adventure she could have ever thought of, and now Yerim is bailing on her.

“I am fine,” Yerim insists, shaking the weakness away. “Almost. So is the shop real?”

“Well, mostly,” Joy raises her hand and start bending her fingers, counting, “first, they open like at six in the evening, and close at two in the morning, so not really a night shop. Second, the most dangerous thing you can get there is weed. So the ‘drugs’ part is also overrated. And, third, the Pepero thing – they are fake Peperos anyway, that's why they have discontinued types. But sure, from an outsider’s point of view a night drug shop with stolen Pepero boxes is a way to describe that place. Come on, it’s not that far. I’ll walk you.”

“You don’t have to, really. You already spent like an hour saving me and listening to my mumbling! You probably have better things to do,” all the while saying that Yerim just silently hopes that Joy will stay here anyway. Otherwise Yerim will wind up lost and in trouble again.

Joy looks at her and smiles all too knowingly, almost like she is reading her mind. Hopefully she isn’t. That would be embarrassing. Not that Yerim didn’t already tell the most embarrassing story of all.

“Nah, I don’t feel safe leaving you around here alone anyway. And the shop is on our way out. Well, almost?” Joy says, waving a hand in the general direction of ‘out’. “Where do you live?”

“In Bumindong,” Yerim says vaguely, flapping her hand around to draw an invisible district in the air.

“That’s close! College dorms, right? I can afford a small night walk with a cute girl,” Joy says winking at her and starts walking up the street. Yerim runs a little to keep up. To walk so energetically in those heels… Joy really must be a superheroine. Yerim met Wonder Woman at night in the middle of nowhere, Busan, South Korea. At least Chanyeol would be jealous.

“What about the creeps?” Yerim asks, clutching at her coffee can. Joy laughs a little.

“Which ones?”

“Chan… The guy who told me about the shop told me there’s a lot of creeps there so it’s scary.”

That gets Joy positively beaming at her, white teeth and full red lips. Wonder Woman.

“Don’t worry, you have the main creep by your side.”

Surprisingly, it really calms Yerim down, although she should probably know better. Sure, if the main creep is by your side, why worry.

 

***

 

Buying Pepero turns out to be the easiest part of all. The convenience store looks like a Chinese shop with all sorts of foods, though Yerim would have definitely missed it since there are no signs, only Chinese characters written on the door itself.

If there are any creeps, Yerim never actually sees them. She actually only meets the man by the desk. When he sees Joy, he goes a bit stiff, asking if he can be of any assistance with a deep bow. Joy says something in Chinese, just a short word, and the man relaxes. Yerim tries not to think about what all of that means.

On the way back out of the district Joy proves to be really good at conversations and especially in embarrassing Yerim.

“That’s the best thing about it!” Yerim says enthusiastically, “It is actually the same adrenaline which causes you to get pale while you are in danger, but here it causes dilation of your veins. And it doesn’t even work with any other blood vessels other than facial, because only the facial ones are sensitive enough to react to adenylyl cyclase.”

Joy chuckles quietly to herself.

“Sure. That didn’t sound nerdy and weirdly specific at all. Adeny-what, once again?”

“Adenylyl cyclase,” Yerim repeats in her best Kim-Minseok-seonsaengnim-like impression, to really get that pronunciation on point. “That’s like. A chemical transmitter? Um. They work in pair with adrenaline, it gets your veins to react to it.”

“So okay, let me get this straight,” Joy even slows down a little, “is that your answer to me saying you look cute when you blush?”

“Um,” Yerim trips on herself. “Yeah?”

Joy keeps on looking at her with a straight face, but after some time the hints of laughter make themselves known. Yerim flushes a furious red and turns back.

"This is the place," Yerim says, gesturing towards her apartment block. And then she spots people at the top of the stairs leading inside. One of them is very characteristically tall. Yerim sighs. "And those are my friends."

"Ooh," Joy stands up on her toes as if it's gonna help her see better. As if she's not already in heels. "The very friends you took a bet with? Is your illegal Pepero with you?"

"Oh my god," despite the cold, Yerim's cheeks burn again.

Joy's laugh is kinda stupid and maybe a little creepy in the dark almost empty street. It's pretty. Her cheeks puff up from laughing, and her smile is cute, too, showing her gums.

Yerim starts enumerating the exact stages of fucked she is experiencing in this moment. The stages align themselves according to the width of imaginary page, and Yerim remembers she has yet to finish a report. It's due next week, but she already worries now. This thought kickstarts a hangover headache, and Yerim is not happy to welcome it.

"Which floor?" Joy asks, looking up. The wind caresses the hair against her neck, and her large earrings jingle softly.

"Fifth," Yerim says and remembers something even else pleasant, wrinkling her nose, "and the elevator is broken."

"Poor baby," Joy coos, and Yerim flushes again and wants to punch herself in the face. "Okay then, get back to your friends, okay? Try not to get into anything horrible in those like ten meters you walk alone."

"I am sure my friends will save me from here."

"Huh. Why didn't your friends call you, by the way? I'm not jumping to conclusions here, but, like," Joy shrugs. "Not that you owe me an explanation though."

Yerim pulls her phone out of her pocket. There are, indeed, unanswered messages (and one answered, because Yerim's fingers were frozen and she only managed one quick message, forbidding drunk Chanyeol from leaving the dorms) and missed calls.

"I turned off the volume because I didn't want the phone to get stolen."

"Oooh, so smart. Okay, well. I have not yet jumped to conclusions."

They stop under a flickering lamp, close enough that Chanyeol and Seungwan notice her but not, Yerim notes, close enough for them to see Joy's features. Joy sways on her heels and smiles down at Yerim. Yerim's eyes flick down briefly, and then she frowns and looks up and bows.

"Thank you for walking me home," she says, straightening. Joy looks surprised by the sudden confidence in her voice. "You really— you really helped me a lot. With everything. I would've probably been dead, or. Or something. If not for you. Thank you so much."

Joy blinks and laughs, too loud.

"Gosh," she says, pushing her hair away from her face, and smiles, "well. You owe me one."

"I do," Yerim kind of feels that she needed to think a bit longer before saying that, but thinking before speaking isn’t really her style.

"Then I'll see you sometime," Joy says and fucking _winks_ and pinches Yerim's cheek. "Bye-bye, Yerim."

 

"Kim Yerim," Chanyeol starts, as soon as Yerim approaches them but Yerim interrupts him.

"It's all your fault, oppa!"

"What," Chanyeol says dumbly, and Yerim hears faint sounds of fight (probably Seungwan tickling him or something, what do people in love usually do), and then, "no, that's not what I meant at all! I— wow, wait a bit, I'm dizzy."

Seungwan hands him a bottle of water and then hugs Yerim. Seungwan is soft and warm and Yerim starts dozing off a little, before her friend shifts.

"What's that?" she asks, taking the Pepero box out of her hands. "Oh. Oh my god, Yerim. You seriously— Oppa! She brought you the Pepero!"

Chanyeol looks at Seungwan, surprised, then on the Pepero box, then on Yerim, almost speechless. Getting Park Chanyeol speechless is sure one great achievement.

"It makes me feel even worse," he finally says.

"Good," Yerim says. "You are an ass."

"Language," Seungwan reminds distractedly.

She pokes Chanyel one more time and he yelps, covering his sides defensively and leaning on the wall. Then someone from the third floor opens the door and hushes at them. They fall silent and Chanyeol straightens back up decisively, sways a bit, gaining back his balance, and hugs both Seungwan and Yerim just because he can.

"Yeri-ya," he booms from above, "you are a great person and you never have to prove anything to anyone, and you can punch me in the balls in you want to."

"I'll save this opportunity for some other time," Yerim mumbles, unable to speak properly hugged like this, and also too tired to take over such a great offer.

"I'm very glad that's settled," Seungwan says, "now can we move to out room? Oppa, your room is not here, don't get lost. Good luck explaining why you are so late to the dorm guard."

Chanyeol whines but leaves nonetheless and Yerim almost feels sorry for him, but not really.

Seungwan waits until they're in their flat, and then some more, while Yerim washes the cold off and makes herself some tea. And then, of course, Seungwan asks, "So who was that girl you talked to outside?"

Yerim promptly chokes on her tea and feels like a character from a low-budget romantic drama. She quickly revises possible answers and immediately brushes the 'some local criminal probably' off. 'Just a friend' doesn't really work with Seungwan too, because Seungwan knows all of Yerim's friends here. And also all of her friends back home, as well.

"Uuh," Yerim supplies. "She uh. I don't know? She said she lived nearby and agreed to walk with me because I got lost?"

Seungwan takes a sip from her own mug.

"Okay," she says after a moment of consideration. "It's good such people exist. I just— God, Yerim!"

Seungwan tries to wave her hand but than probably thinks that it is better not to do that with a mug of hot tea in her hands and puts it down.

"I was so worried! You know you aren't less of a good friend and a good student and a good person even if you didn't have those majestic Chanyeol-like experiences, don't you? You really don't have to prove yourself to us ever."

Yerim does appreciate the sentiment, but she feels more and more tired with every blink of an eye.

"Yeah," she mumbles. "Thank you, unnie. I love you. I'm sorry, I'm too tired to talk or to think right now. Can we just, like, go to sleep?"

Seungwan smiles gently and takes one of Yerim's hands in her own.

"Okay," she says. "I think I'm still riding off my adrenaline. I never thought just waiting could be so nerve-wracking."

"Well, you got to share Chanyeol's jacket," Yerim says lazily, and Seungwan gasps, blushes and laughs silly.

"We waited for so long we even saw Zhang-seonsaengnim leave the university," she quickly supplies, changing the topic.

"Oh, for real? I honestly believed the rumor that he lives in there."

"Well, turns out he doesn't. He's probably the last one to leave, though. Can you imagine just— janitors and security yelling at him so he would finally go home?"

Yerim snorts, and it pains her tired hungover head.

Needless to say, she feels and looks terrible the next morning, while professor Zhang Yixing is, as per usual, glowing and enthusiastic about prosecuting amphibians first thing in the morning.

 

***

 

“Unnie!!” Yerim calls from the door, already dressed and jingling keys in her hand nervously. “We are going to be late again, seriously!”

“I am coming!” Seungwan yells back pitifully, the bathroom walls making her already quite impressive voice boom across the apartment. Yerim can almost see Seungwan pouting. She tries to calm down and breathes, but her nerves don’t give up easily.

“You are still in the shower! If I get kicked out of the uni I blame it on you!” she probably won’t get kicked out but it doesn’t mean she’s not thinking about such possibility all the time.

When Yerim starts considering to just go without Seungwan, someone knocks on the door. It’s kinda weird, because it could be Chanyeol, but Seungwan mentioned that they have a game today, so it shouldn’t be him. Maybe a neighbour decided they couldn’t handle Seungwan’s opera voice yelling from the bathroom every morning.

“Are you waiting for someone?” Yerim asks just to make sure.

“No! Can you get that? I can’t get out like that!”

Oh god, she is not even dressed. Seungwan is sure taking her time this morning. Zhang-seonsaengnim is going to murder her if she’s late for his classes again. (Which he won’t, because he seems to— appreciate her efforts, but it’s always a possibility, yet again, especially when your teacher can literally cut you open).

Yerim checks herself in the mirror and opens the door.

Well that is definitely not the grumpy Lee-halmeoni from the 4th floor at all.

It’s been almost two weeks since the night they met, and Yerim started to forget the troubles she got herself into, but forgetting Joy was a bit more difficult even with all the homework she had to deal with.

Now, standing at her door Joy looks very different from before. She wears no makeup, sneakers instead of the high heels, loose sweatpants, hair tied up in a messy bun. The other difference is that she looks really pale, her eyes wide.

“Joy,” Yerim starts, voice catching in her throat, “wha—”

Joy looks at her strangely, intent, tight look in the eyes and brings her index finger to her mouth. Yerim shuts up.

“Are you alone?” Joy barely whispers, almost inaudible. Yerim notices though that her throat muscles work like she’s screaming. She is generally very tense, like she was running or something, her fixed look, sharp movements cutting through the calm of Yerim’s flat and routine of her morning.

“No, Seungwan-unnie is there,” Yerim doesn’t know why, but she also picks up the whispering part.

“She doesn’t need to know,” Joy looks about the apartment quickly and returns her feverish gaze to Yerim.

“What the hell?” The shock gives way to all secondary thoughts: that Joy is, despite being hot and sympathetic that one time, some kind of delinquent. She might be under the influence of drugs, given her questionable looks, and there might be some other people, her _friends_ or whatever. And Yerim is late for her classes yet again, and Seungwan definitely doesn’t need to know—

Out of the corner of her eye Yerim can see the bathroom door opening and Seungwan performing the walk of shame towards her room.

“Yeri-ya, who’s that?” she asks once she’s inside, door still open a little. Yerim tries to move to make sure Seungwan doesn’t see anything.

Joy looks at her wildly, mouthing: “You owe me”.

“Um,” Yerim feels the panic inside her rising, while Joy just watches her like she is ready to knock her out. Unable to think straight, Yerim shouts back to Seungwan, “no one! A bunch of kids selling cookies!”

What the fuck, Yerim, she thinks immediately after the words leave her mouth. What kind of kids would sell cookies on the fifth floor of the apartment block near the medical building of the university in the early morning.

“Did you get me some?” Seungwan asks innocently, and Yerim is honestly getting close to a breakdown.

“Unnie, we got a closet stuffed with cookies! I am NOT getting more!” This is a real concern, actually, they do not even have the space in the kitchen anymore. “Can you please get ready?”

“Bummer!” Seungwan laughs and finally closes the door to her room, completely ignoring the plea for hurrying up. For once, Yerim is almost relieved about that. Yerim turns back to Joy. She seems to have relaxed just this little bit, and exhales slowly, shakily.

“Thank you. I need your help.” Only now Yerim notices that the bondages on Joy’s hands are covered with dirt and something else, like... Blood? She also holds her jacket, the same one she was wearing back when they met, close to herself, like she is covering something.

“What happened?”

Joy winces and looks at the door to Seungwan’s room. Her voice is hoarse when she speaks even a little louder than a whisper.

“Can we talk somewhere safe?”

Yerim, then, gets a brief moment to review her options. The most acceptable option, all things considered, is, probably, to say no, and probably call Seungwan and probably not let Joy in.

But Joy helped her. And Yerim does indeed owe her. And Joy needs help, the same way Yerim needed it on that street.

Okay, maybe not the same, but still.

Yerim brings her finger to her lips and whispers, “Follow me to my room. Quiet, we do not need Seungwan-unnie to notice,” which is stupid because that’s exactly what Joy said just a couple minutes ago, but well, no-one can really blame Yerim for not being the sharpest tool in the shed right now. Joy just nods.

They go to her room and Yerim locks the door from the inside. Joy slumps on the wall near her and drops a sport bag she was carrying. Yerim notices that in the normal light Joy looks even worse. Unstable, shaking and breathing rapidly, ghostly pale with dark circles and lips standing out starkly.

“What happened?” she repeats the earlier question. Joy turns the head slightly to look at her and repeats such a popular today gesture again. Quiet. Yerim nods and Joy drops her jacket on the floor.

The sweatshirt she is wearing is stained red in the abdominal area. It also has a hole in it, like it has been cut through. Yerim can’t hold back, sounds spilling out before she registers them.

“Holy shit, Joy!”

“Quiet,” Joy almost snaps at her and clenches her teeth, breathing out through the nose harshly.

“Yeri-ya, did you say anything? Where are you? I am waiting! We should go!” Seungwan calls from the hall, finally ready.

Oh fuck. Yerim looks at the stains on Joy’s shirt and at her pale (but still pretty; Yerim shoos away this thought as irrelevant) face. She couldn’t figure out her expression earlier, but now she gets it, and it’s so obvious Yerim feels even worse for not noticing right away. Joy is in pain. That’s why she is here. She is not drugged, she is just in pain. And she came because Yerim is an aspiring surgeon, possibly, and she can, possibly, help.

She should probably explain everything to Seungwan and call an ambulance, but before she does, one single thought strikes her. Joy didn’t call the ambulance. Joy didn’t so she can’t either. Without giving that a second thought, she answers to Seungwan.

“Um. Unnie, look, I just found our that I made a mistake in the assignment submission!” That is the most blatant lie, even worse than kids selling cookies, since she didn’t even have a submission this time, but well.

“What?!” Seungwan sounds shocked. A historic event: Kim Yerim the honorary nerd fails something. Even though it’s a lie.

“Yeah, I know! And it is for Kim-seonsaengnim’s class!”

“Like, Kim Minseok-seonsaengnim?”

Now Yerim is also terrified. God, why did she even— She never in her life even so much as joked about failing Kim Minseok’s class. Clearly Yerim is not built for lying. She still has to roll with it though.

“I knooow! I feel so stupid!” That, at least, is true. “But look, I still have time till his class today! I need to resubmit the thing or he’ll murder me.”

“You sure? What about the other classes?” Yerim hears Seungwan picking up her keys and shuffling her jacket. Belatedly she thinks about Joy’s shoes and looks down to check that she didn’t take them off. It is both a relief and a pain; Yerim had just cleaned the floors yesterday.

“Would you prefer to be killed by Zhang-seonsaengnim or Minseok-seonsaengnim?” Yerim hears Seungwan laugh. It’s only funny because they know the way Zhang Yixing will kill them, but they know nothing about murderous habits of Kim Minseok. Which, in hindsight, isn’t funny at all.

“Okey-dokey!” Seungwan sing-songs, albeit a bit worriedly. “Good luck with that!”

Finally, Yerim hears the door being shut. God, what did she get herself into.

“Thanks,” Joy’s voice cuts through silence, effectively stopping Yerim’s self-reflection.

Right, Joy. The wound. Yerim is a doctor, so she is the one who needs to do something. She looks at Joy and tries to get rid of all the second-guessing. Aspiring surgeon or not, she is definitely capable of basic first aid.

“Lie down,” is the first thing she can think of.

“What?” Joy looks surprised with Yerim suddenly changing the tone. “Yeri-ya that's moving too fast! We didn’t even have a date!” Even being in pain, Joy can — and intents to — make Yerim blush. Yerim fights it the only way she knows — by bitching.

“Well, since we don’t have any better option, we can start with a couple of games,” bitching, actually, really helps, “first would be ten questions, then I’ll get you undressed, and then there will be some pure BDSM involving pain and bandages. Does that sound better?”

Joy laughs, still surprisedly, but cringes and her smiles fades away, “Yeah. Sure. Where?”

Where. Good question. Wooden floor of the rented flat does not sound as an okay place for blood stains. Yerim thinks about that for a second and thinks of the solution, reaching for the door with an intention to leave the room, but Joy grabs her hand, definitely not able to follow Yerim’s erratic decision-making.

“Don’t,” Joy’s voice is rough, harsh, like her throat is sore. It also would be hard to disobey, and Yerim kinda waits for the panic to freeze her movements and brain, but it doesn’t happen, because Yerim can be a stubborn bitch when she has a plan. Even if it is a very bad plan. Extremely bad plan.

Yerim takes a breath and remembers everything she was taught during her clinical practice about patient-doctor interaction. Yerim carefully takes Joy’s clammy hand and looks at her with all the patience she can assemble.

“You do not want the ambulance, right?” Yerim didn’t even think about getting one, though maybe she really should have. If Joy could call the ambulance she would have called one, not knock on Yerim’s door bleeding. But Joy doesn’t seem to trust her on that. Joy nods. “You also do not want the police and any other people. But you need help, right?”

Yerim feels that applying textbook methods doesn’t seem like the best solution, but it is not like she has any other. Her mother would suggest an ill kid a cookie, but that doesn't seem relevant.

“Yup, girl.” It’s actually ridiculous how Joy musters up the sass from nowhere in any possible situation. It seems like if she could she would be pointing finger guns at Yerim. “No ambulance, no cops, no anyone.”

“Okay. Your cut has to be cleaned. I need to stop the bleeding, and ideally we need to stitch that. I am not going to be able to do that with a bunch of Hello Kitty toys and k-pop posters.”

Joy looks around the room, almost searching for something that can be used for stitching, and her hold is getting less tight. Then she chuckles weakly, like there is barely any energy left for arguing, “You can try.”

“No,” Yerim says sternly, “Joy, I really cannot." Yerim changes the position of her hands, so it is her who holds Joy’s fingers carefully, quietly stroking with her thumb where the bondages end. The skin is rough and dirty from blood, but her palm is slim, fingers long and delicate. “So you will have to let me out of the room at least to get the medical kit.”

Joy hesitates for a second, and Yerim thinks that at the end no textbook will actually help you talk to a real patient. All the ‘it is going to be okay’ things do not really work right now, so Yerim just takes advantage of the situation, putting all the confidence she has in her voice, “Let me clear that part, you either trust me and let me out, or we are going to stay here, and you’ll get your wound infected and make everything worse. You know that, right?”

Joy looks at her, surprised again, then lowers her gaze down to where Yerim holds her fingers and lets go.

“Sorry. You are right. Just. No cops and ambulance, okay?” Her voice becomes lost, like with this argument she loses the rest of her confidence which brought her to Yerim’s door.

“Okay,” with that Yerim finally opens the door and walks out.

Outside the room she looks at her phone for the entire ten seconds. A sensible human being would totally call the ambulance. It is probably a street fight of some sort, nothing major. But instead Yerim puts her phone back in the pocket and goes to the bathroom.

When she enters the room about ten minutes later, carrying the bucket of water, medical kit and the shower screen, she notices that Joy is sitting on her chair, covering the wound by her jacket again and staring at something on the wall. Yerim spreads the shower screen on the floor, putting the rest of the things next to it, and comes closer to Joy, kneeling in front of her to get her attention.

“Are you in pain?”

Joy turns to her, as if shocked that someone else is in the room. It really worries Yerim now, because she sees that Joy is clearly feeling worse, which can mean so many things, including the wound being already infected.

“Are you alright? I mean, except for bleeding. Obviously. Do you feel like you are going to faint?” Yerim touches Joy’s forehead to check if there is any fever, but it seems okay.

Joy hesitates again, frowning, but shakes her head.

“I think I am fine. Sorry,” she chuckles softly, as Yerim watches her suppress a wince. “All of that really wasn’t supposed to happen. I should have been prepared better and never let this happen, but i failed,” Joy bites down on her lower lip and Yerim traces her movement with her eyes. “And now you’re involved.”

Yerim shrugs with relief, “That’s okay.” She doesn’t mean to say anything else, but something about Joy, possibly seeing her bite her lips again makes her blurt out, “I am actually happy I got to see you again.”

After Yerim understands what she said she feels her cheeks getting red, again, as Joy just stares at her, and then breaking into a weak laugh, flashing white teeth.

“You’re so cute, seriously,” she has the audacity to say while having the cutest fucking smile on Earth. Yerim actually gets a little mad at it.

Then she breathes and tries to avoid thinking about that too much. Though she is also happy to see Joy relax a little bit, coming back into her natural flirty self. To avoid blushing even further, Yerim gets back to the main topic.

“We need to get you undressed. Give me the jacket.”

Joy doesn’t even joke or argue, probably too tired to do that, and just accommodates Yerim when she helps Joy to get her her sweatshirt and T-shirt off. The first thing Yerim notices is a cut. It is about ten centimeters long, just above her left hip bone. That is really not the best place to get yourself cut, but Joy seems to be the luckiest person in the world, since she actually is still able to stand, meaning none of the important insides are damaged. Yerim carefully helps Joy move from the chair onto the floor.

The next thing Yerim notices is Joy’s body. Or rather, her right shoulder, which is covered by a tattoo. It depicts a traditional Korean dragon, dark red colour carved deep into the skin. Yerim has seen a tattoo before, sure. Even wouldn’t have been surprised if Joy had one, since she is probably a criminal or whatever. But this is just different. Different to any European-style tattoos, as in the ink is different, as well as the design. The dragon really does look impressive, almost alive, and Yerim cannot force herself to look away. Then she notices that Joy is looking at her, almost waiting for her reaction, but Yerim chooses to say nothing, her eyes finally leaving the tattoo, but still caught up on Joy, instead.

She can tell right away that Joy is really strong, her body muscled and abs visible. It is unfamiliar to see such a strong body belonging to a girl, with her chest in a comfortable sports bra. Along with muscle, Joy also has a lot of scars. Yerim counts four that can be seen — two, maybe five years old max, on her stomach; another, much older, fading, on her left elbow. One more seems to be the oldest and just different, a round crater in the skin just above the bra line on her right side. It’s the first time Yerim sees a gunshot wound on a person. It all looks odd, but still kind of perfect on Joy, even the scars, and the scary tattoo, which, combined, kind of make Yerim want to trace the lines of that body and all the scars with her fingers.

But instead of getting stuck on this, Yerim braces herself together and helps Joy move to the shower screen and lie down. Joy tries to just crush on the floor like she would with a bed, either from tiredness or not giving a shit, but Yerim hisses at her and lays her down slowly and carefully.

“So, ten questions time,” Yerim starts, opening the kit and taking out some rubbing alcohol they thankfully have in their flat. “What actually happened?”

Having just relaxed, Joy stiffens again at the question, looking at Yerim defensively, “That’s not relevant.”

Yerim sighs; can’t really hold it back. “Let’s make it more specific: when, how far did you walk and what caused this?”

At this Joy seems to think for a second, probably estimating the time. In the meantime Yerim rips a part of the clean gauze and puts some alcohol on it.

“Like half an hour ago? That fucker got me with a knife,” Yerim can see Joy wincing, like she was just merely irritated at the fact that someone stabbed her with a knife. “I walked from Sinchandong.”

“Sinchandong?!” Yerim’s intonation borders on hysterical, because this is really too much and far too close to where they live, but she quickly bottles it down. “I was sure it was safe.”

“Those weren’t just random... Ouch!” Joy yelps when Yerim starts to clean the wound, but doesn’t move, her stomach muscles constricting and relaxing rapidly.

“I promised you BDSM, didn’t I? Just stay still.”

The wound actually looks good, as much as it possibly can, and the bleeding isn’t severe, proving that Joy is just the luckiest. It still looks really painful though, but she seems to not mind it much, whimpering more from surprise than from pain and being fine with all the following procedure.

“Does it hurt?” Yerim still asks, checking in with her patient with the most stupid question you can ask to a stabbed person.

Joy makes a subtle movement resembling a shrug, trying not to bother Yerim. “Yeah, I guess? But, you know. I got lots of those or worse so the pain doesn’t bother me that much.”

Lots of those, huh. Joy is like from a different planet where getting stabbed with a knife isn’t a grand event or an event at all. Yerim processes this information, but continues to clean the cut, as they both stay silent until she finishes. Joy’s breath is much calmer now, and her body’s temperature seems to be okay, but the cut still needs to be stitched. Which is when Yerim comes up with a most bizzare plan she could have ever thought of.

When she finishes with the cut and applies a clean bandage to it, the plan is already very clear in her head. It is still terrible, but Yerim doesn’t think she can come up with anything better (except for just calling the ambulance of course).

When she starts cleaning up the space from the used materials, her mind still stuck on that, Joy breaks the silence: “Are you going to stitch that?”

Yerim shakes her head. “For now I minimized the bleeding and cleaned the cut. Now you’ll have to stay here and I will go to uni.”

“Uni?!” Joy seems surprised by that, but she doesn’t react the same way she did before, which gives Yerim hope that Joy trusts her, and Yerim’s heart goes warm. That is. A good thing to have with your patients, trust. No other reasons at all. Obviously.

“Joy,” for the first time Yerim trips on her name, thanking that Joy is probably, most likely older, and that is definitely rude. Then again, this whole situation is far from your usual everyday human interactions, and Joy doesn’t discourage her, so she might as well roll with it, “Do you think I have a hospital level medical kit with all the medications and instruments in the kitchen behind Seungwan-unnie’s cookie boxes?”

Joy shrugs, “Well, you might? Maybe you can stitch me with something more common?”

Yerim frowns. She would really like to ask Joy not to interfere with her plan, as every question make her anxieties come back to her: she missed Zhang Yixing’s classes, she lied to her friend, she is about to do an actual illegal thing and very likely get expelled from the university. She pushes everything down in favour of Joy’s pouty lips and soft-looking cheeks. Fuck.

“Nope. No superhero movies involved. I’ll get the instruments and medications and will come back.” Hopefully. If they don’t catch her before that. That’s a thin possibility so Joy doesn’t need to know.

“Yeri-ya, I’ll get bored without you,” Joy pouts, evidently to be the bane of Yerim’s already shattered composure.

“Bandage changing will keep you entertained,” Yerim looks around the room, picking up the things she can reach without standing up. Her bag is still at the door though, “Do you know how to do that?”

“You know you are really sexy when you talk doctor?” Yerim whips her head back so fast something in her neck cracks. Joy smiles a gummy smile and wiggles her brows, “Yeah, don’t worry seonsaengnim, I can deal with this.”

Yerim rolls her eyes, adjusting the bondage and choosing to ignore her flaming cheeks.

“We’re done. I brought you water. Don’t stand up and generally try not to move. I’ll lock the door from the outside, in case Seungwan comes home early or something. Better not to risk that.”

She tries to stand up finally, but Joy grabs her hand again, squinting at her slightly. “No ambulance or cops.”

Now that is just offensive. Yerim looks at Joy strictly, letting all her worries show as a bit of annoyance. “Look, let's think you are my patient and you have a full right for privacy. I also owe you. I get it, you got into some shit, you probably do that daily and don’t want cops involved. I don’t care, okay?”

Joy looks at her, like Yerim just keeps surprising her, and honestly, Yerim gets that, because she is always the first to get surpised by her own actions. Joy now holds Yerim’s hand just lightly, covering it with her own bandaged one.

“You’re weird,” Joy says with a curious face and large eyes, like she is confessing something big and exciting to Yerim, “like, nerd turns into sexy badass weird.”

Yerim can’t handle it any longer. She pulls her hand away and covers her face, growling, “Stop that!”

Joy just laughs a little in response.

When Yerim picks up her backpack and closes the door to her room, she finally lets her worries loose, thinking that this one sexy badass still has to figure out how she's going to get the medications and the instruments from the university.

 

***

 

First thing Yerim does is nervously figuring out how to make a prescription list. It doesn’t go very well because even though Yerim was sure she can never forget those damn prescriptions after studying them for so long, can’t remember what one looks like, except that it’s like, green… and has a name of a medicine, as well as the doctor’s name on it…

She ruffles through her and Seungwan’s endless stock of miscellaneous papers they store in the living room, both notes and just garbage, and only manages to find a list of what should be included in the prescription, written by her in a class. She should have probably spent a bit more time organizing her class notes properly.

Googling the prescription works much better, God bless the internet and photoshop on Seungwan’s computer. Yerim should probably ask before she started using it, but now doesn’t quite feel like the best time for it. Also, only Seungwan’s computer has connection to the printer so it is not like Yerim has many choices. Except the one, where she stops playing hero and just calls the ambulance. Actually that would also still be the best one.

“Sure, Yerim, let’s take a break and freak out. Great timing to re-evaluate your life choices,” Yerim mumbles quietly while photoshop loads.

Maybe Joy could do without medications, her brain supplies, panicking and searching for any possible exit. At the very least, she and Seungwan have some painkillers at home. They won’t help much if at all, but hey, Joy was ready to get stitched with a regular needle. This is of course a very professional thought making her a totally trustworthy surgeon.

The goddamn photoshop finally loads, and Yerim shakes her head, trying to get rid of the panic and really unhelpful ideas. If Yerim has to falsify a prescription list to ensure her patient doesn’t suffer more than they have to, then so be it.

While she messes with the photoshop, carefully changing all the necessary details, her brain keeps carefully supplying her with very useful thoughts like “could’ve gone into pediatrics” in her mother’s voice. Yerim frowns and compulsively saves a halfway-done file three times in a row.

She notices her hands shaking and takes a deep breath, standing up to grab a glass of water and one of the cookies she was so unhappy about just an hour ago. Food helps to think, as she considers dosages appropriate for Joy, types them in the blank spaces. She types the name of the hospital and, after a minute’s hesitation, the name of Zhang Yixing. Since he’s actually working in the said hospital and all, while she is just a third year student trying to commit a crime.

Zhang-seonsaengnim is going to eviscerate her if he ever finds out. Nicely and with a moral in the end, just the way he likes it.

The colours in the printer are running low, and the printer itself has been approaching its death since the time Seungwan brought it from home. Yerim jumps nervously from one foot to another while the printer grunts and hisses.

She considers verifying the prescription (looking _almost_ like a real one; almost) with her own stamp, if only she manages to find it (she had a qualm with her dad about it once so she just hid it away somewhere and never saw it again). Then she thinks better, imagines a discrepancy in the pharmacy, creating the fuss, people looking at her and asking to _wait just a minute_.

Yeah, she would probably need something more legit. Hospital seal should work, since she will need to go there anyway. She doesn’t even need to steal it, just like, borrow for a couple of seconds.

The thing about their university (and, by a stretch, the hospital attached to it) is that it’s not even hard to steal from, when you really think about it. Yerim thinks about it for a prolonged time, starting from packing the prescription and her medical robe in her backpack and throughout the least convenient route to the university, because secretiveness, duh. Yerim thinks about theft more than she ever has in her life, and it’s from the position of a criminal. Fantastic.

There is a brief moment just before the entrance to the hospital when Yerim gets both frightened and disgusted by everything what’s happening. Panicked ‘what the fuck am i doing’ rushes through her head when she opens the door and almost gets ready to run away, but then she notices that the woman on the reception already sees her, looking strict and annoyed, probably by the fact that Yerim is blocking the door.

Yerim just smiles at her as she usually would, and passes the entrance hall by, just because it would be just too weird to turn back now, and that’s all the time she needs to get her thoughts back together.

Why exactly just giving Joy away to the police (or, preferably, to someone actually qualified to operate on people) is not a choice is an interesting question which Yerim will not research at the moment, because she has to perform morally questionable things.

She stops by the hospital’s plan helpfully supplied in case of fire and evacuation. Not that Yerim doesn’t exactly know where is the lab with all the instruments that they use for practice, but the plan actually helps her think properly.

The lab is usually closed when there are no classes in there, so she takes another turn to get to a timetable. If it is occupied, she will just sneak in, apologise many times, say that she forgot something and carefully sneak the instruments into her bag.

Students aren’t prohibited from entering at any time, because they’re students and they need practice. Students are reckless and constantly forget things. Yerim hates people who seem to just throw their staff around their workplace and then inevitably leave behind a fucking umbrella or their favourite plushie or whatever. Today, if Yerim meets anyone, she will have to be the person she hates. Oh well.

However, the schedule is mercilessly empty , which means the room is locked and Yerim needs the key.  
She looks around in hopes to find something helpful, and her eyes fall on the camera by the entrance door. As the professional thief she is, she never even thought of the cameras, and she probably should have.

She spends some time deciphering the name of a camera by the entrance (she can only hope the security, if they were looking at the screen at the same time Yerim stared at the camera, didn’t suspect anything, because hey, med students, right? not enough sleep, too much caffeine, stuff like that).

Yerim figures the cameras would be of the same brand all around the hospital, so she googles the characteristics of the camera on her phone, and then googles what these characteristics mean. The most helpful thing she finds out is that their hospital saves a lot of money on the security system, which is good for her now, but generally is very, very unsettling.

At the second page of the camera’s description Yerim finally understands that she just procrastinates, trying to delay thinking about actually doing something, so she decisively closes the browser and puts her phone back in her pocket.

So her next problem is the key, right? Yerim goes back to the hall and stares helplessly at the woman at the reception, who is somehow unwilling to just— give her the key without asking questions.

“Do you have a problem?” the woman asks. She looks and sounds tired. She’s probably waiting for her night shift to end. It ends in — Yerim checks the clock behind the reception desk — fifteen minutes.

“Actually,” Yerim says and tries to make a less intimidating face. She has no idea what her face is conveying half of the time, but Seungwan always says she looks pissed. “I’m so stupid,” again, completely true, “I had a lesson with my group in operating room 506 last Thursday,” she didn’t, and she just makes it worse for herself by making up all these details, but she can’t stop now that she started speaking, “and it seems like I forgot some of my belongings in the laboratory when we were putting the instruments away—”

“You wouldn’t be the first one,” the woman interjects impassively and gestures to one of the doors behind her. “Want to check for your thing in there?”

Well. Yerim hasn’t overlooked it.

“Uuum,” she says, clasping her cold sweaty hands on the strap of her bag, “I would gladly, but I’m afraid it might not be in there? It’s a— small thing. A flash drive, in fact.”

The woman looks at her, infinitely exhausted. Why would anyone bring a fucking flash drive in the operating room, Yerim thinks, internally facepalming. It seems though, judging by the woman’s unimpressed face, that students have brought worse stuff in the operating room.

“I’m really so sorry,” Yerim says. “I— um. I know you’re technically aren’t allowed to, but maybe it is possible to just lend me the key? I honestly already feel horrible enough and don’t want to inconvenience you even more. Your shift ends soon, am I correct? I don’t want to hold you up. Just— tell your shift-partner you gave me the key, and I’ll return it once I find my stuff? Please? I’m really. So sorry.”

The woman sighs greatly, fumbles on the table, then opens the storage case on the wall and hands out a key. Yerim tells her name to put it in the system.

“If you do anything weird in there,” the woman warns without any threat in her voice.

“I swear I won’t,” Yerim’s voice gives out. Not suspicious at all.

She flies up the stairs and remembers about the elevator only when she’s on the fourth floor. She also remembers about the robe and awkwardly pulls it out of the bag, also figuring out that changing clothes on the staircase would be super weird, especially for a cool and calm doctor she is supposed to be. So the best thing she can think of is changing in the restroom which is, luckily, just next to the staircase, so she will just need to slip there, preferably without anyone noticing—

“Yeri-ya!”

Shit.  
  
“Um, hello, Chanyeol-oppa! You’re, um. What are you doing here?” Chanyeol is supposed to be on a baseball game today, so meeting him in the hospital wasn’t supposed to happen.

Chanyeol beams at her, looking down to where she stands in her converses, feeling, as always, very tiny. Gosh, why was she born to be this short and with no ability to wear heels daily.

“Oh, that’s a long story! Do you remember...”

While Chanyeol goes on with his story about some medical examination he was going through for the upcoming baseball season, Yerim feels more and more uncomfortable with every passing second. It’s not that she doesn’t like Chanyeol. She even thinks him and Seungwan would be kinda perfect together. But really, out of all times, now she is really not up to this level of friendliness.

“Actually!” she cuts in, which is not very polite, but anyway, “Did you know that they recently installed this new romantic attraction in Lotte Water Park? You know, the one in Gimhae?”

Chanyeol, taken aback by her question, nods silently, then just asks, “Why?”

“Seungwan-unnie has been complaining about having no one to go with for days!” This is not completely a lie; she mentioned it like, once.

Chanyeol expression changes to the huge-puppy eyes one in a split second. Seungwan is probably going to hate her for interfering but, well, there is only so many chances to get Chanyeol to shut up.

“So I saw you and remembered it. You should ask her out, oppa.”

At that, Chanyeol quickly changes species, turning from a puppy into a goldfish, which was precisely the effect Yerim expected: confused Chanyeol is silent Chanyeol. She forces out a smile and takes a first step forward and away from Chanyeol.

“By the way, you know what? I am super late so I need to go! Bye! Let me know how it goes later!”

She is not sure if Chanyeol answers her at all, leaving him gulping in the middle of the hall, while she just runs off to the opposite end of it, where operating room 506 is located. Yerim pulls on the robe hurriedly while walking, since it is definitely better not to go back to where Chanyeol is. She is also awkwardly bowing to everyone she meets, but among many people in the hall only one side-eyes her.

Yerim supposes, in hindsight, that it was because of her hair. She kind of forgets she bleached it stark fucking blond in the summer, since everyone else in the university constantly expresses themselves in a weird way. It’s always strange to come to the hospital where everyone is grown-up and has a natural hair colour. And no, like, tattoos. And bullet scars. Yerim shivers a bit, remembering the thin line across Joy’s stomach, that she wanted to trace with her fingers so much. Wow, those thoughts are really not helpful.

The cameras are put right above the door and in the corners of the room. Yerim obscures the vision of the door by her body and locks it as discreetly as possible.

There’s a camera above the door leading to the laboratory, as well, but Yerim guesses since she has already borrowed the key for the lab it wouldn’t be much of a problem. She opens the door to the lab, and notices that there aren’t any cameras inside, and that fact is kinda unsettling again. Sure, she is super lucky and all, but seriously, is it that easy to steal from a university hospital?

If the operating room smelled of rubbing alcohol and something else, like a detergent, the air in the laboratory is much stuffier. It smells of rubbing alcohol, too, but also of perfume and of something burnt. Yerim takes the best and most complete set of instruments off its drawer and stuffs it in her bag. She suddenly understands that she will have to return them somehow, and— well, no-one could accidentally take the whole set with them, right? Especially considering the instruments are usually covered in… well, substances after the class.

Oh well. Maybe she’ll be expelled already and won’t have to worry about such things.

Yerim zips the bag up and stops to inhale-exhale for a couple of minutes. Okay. So. Now she has to return the key and find a way to get a stamp for the prescription. That should be— easier than actually creating a fake prescription list from scratch. Right?

She has no idea of how to act when she walks down the stairs to the reception. The woman who gave her the key is gone, another one having taken her place. She looks fresh and considerably happier than her shift-partner.

So she doesn’t know what Yerim looks like. No-one working at the reception desk right now does, because the shift has changed. Also Yerim is wearing a robe. And a bunch of other doctors walk up to the reception desk to verify their papers with stamps. So that actually looks doable, if Yerim acts natural enough.

(And gets rid of her sunflower-printed backpack and, preferably, of her wild hair colour).

Turns out when your heart beats everywhere in your body from the nerves it’s physically hard to walk. Especially hard to walk naturally. Yerim forces herself to breathe, walks straight past the people working at the reception with the prescription in shaking hands. Someone looks at her and says a confused, “Hello,” but Yerim doesn’t dare look up at them and storms forward.

She’s familiar with how the whole process should happen, her study group have been here with no other but Zhang Yixing himself, showing them with his own hand how to put a stamp on a prescription list.

She checks the prescription once more, just to make sure she haven’t made a terrible mistake and consequently ruined everything, and stumps a paper with nervous force. She then walks out straight towards the restroom, much like she planned to do in the beginning.

Her reflection is very pale, with shadows under eyes standing out like she is close to fainting. She might be, but then she remembers that it is still counter-productive to the purpose of adrenaline, and that actually calms her down a bit. Yerim all but rips her robe off because her body doesn’t want to move like it’s supposed to. She puts the robe along with the prescription in her backpack and ruffles her hair, just in case it changes— anything at all. She takes out the key and the flash drive which was in her backpack all this time, luckily.

The woman at the reception smiles at her, and Yerim smiles back, just probably a bit wild.

“I’m the girl who forgot her flash drive in the operating room,” she says cheerfully and shakes the thing in her hand. “I am really so sorry for all the trouble— I promise it won’t happen again. Thank you for being so considerate.”

The woman laughs and waves her off with a friendly, “You’re so young, it’s not a crime to be reckless.”

Yes, it is. Oh well.

The purchase of the actual medications goes in a blur. Yerim isn’t even sure she says everything like the etiquette dictates her to. Judging by the fact she leaves the pharmacy with medications and by herself, not in the police car, it all goes well enough. Hopefully.

 

***

 

When Yerim gets home, it takes her a moment to catch her breath. She wasn’t running, just walking so fast she barely remembers her way. Her heart pounds loudly in her chest, and she almost panics for a second, adrenaline levels somewhere on top. For a girl who never had a drink until she was legally allowed to do so it seems a hell of a day already, with non-licensed surgery waiting ahead.

Yerim takes another deep breath and goes to the bathroom, washing her face before going back to her room. Joy still lies in the same place, eyes closed, but not really sleeping. Yerim can tell because she sees how her eyelashes flutter. Even so, Yerim cannot look away, staring at her, as if while Joy’s eyes are closed it’s not happening in real life.  
  
”Joy,” before the silence gets awkward, Yerim musters some energy to speak.  
  
“Hey, dear. You’re back? How was it?” Joy voice seems sore, even though still playful, and Yerim notices that there’s no water left in the glass. She should bring more.  
  
“Committing theft from my university and illegally prescribing drugs?” Yerim chuckles. It’s almost surprising for herself how light her tone is. “Successful, but horrible, thanks for asking.”  
  
Yerim sits down beside Joy, who still holds the cloth covering the wound. Yerim carefully pulls her slim fingers away, and Joy’s hands linger on hers a bit longer than necessary.

The wound seems to be clean, and the bleeding almost stopped, but Yerim carefully cleans it again. Joy stays silent, as if completely out of the process, looking somewhere in the window. Silence makes Yerim nervous.  
  
“Hey, it’s question time, okay?” Yerim unpacks the instruments and starts carefully cleaning her hands with the rubbing alcohol.

Joy turns her head to look at her: “I am intrigued,” her lips go up slightly, almost a smile, but a tired one.  
  
“Do you have any known allergies for food and medications, especially lidocaine?” Yerim has heard Zhang Yixing asking this question a thousand times but never did it herself.

“Nope, I don’t think so,” Joy replies after a pause.

“Do you take any medicines on daily basis?” Yerim asks, putting on gloves and sanitizing the instruments as much as she can. “Did you take any today?”

“Oral contraceptives.”

Yerim kind of wants to ask Joy if she is in the relationships, if she has a boyfriend, but that would be extremely unprofessional. She just silently fills the syringe with the medicine. When she looks at the wound now, she doesn’t feel nervous anymore. She saw that done thousand times. It is a simple, clean cut. She stitched way worse things herself, but on corpses. But a body is just a body anyway.

“Are you sure that’s necessary?” Joy looks at Yerim with large eyes, very serious. Yerim frowns and looks around briefly. Is the stitching necessary? They’ve already confirmed it is, didn’t they?

“What do you mean?”

“The syringe,” Joy shivers, masking it as a shrug. It all looks the same with her lying down: jerky, nervous motions.

“Do you want me to stitch you with no anesthesia at all?” Not that Yerim would be surprised at this point but.

Joy looks at her, huge brown eyes, soft lips, and suddenly pouts. “I hate those.”

So Joy’s unbothered by someone stabbing her with a knife, by the prospect of being stitched with something that’s not meant for this purpose, but she’s afraid of syringes.

“I am not going to stitch you like that, that’s unnecessarily cruel. It is just one injection in your skin instead of, like, ten.” Joy still pouts and it looks so cute that Yerim chuckles. “You can’t be serious. Do you want a plush toy?”

Joy seems to consider that for a second but then says, “No. Can you hold my hand?”

Yerim snorts but Joy keeps looking at her, so Yerim can’t tell if she is joking or not. So maybe even criminals are afraid of some small things. It’s hard to refuse Joy, still looking at her, waiting for a reply, so Yerim grabs her left hand with her own, interlacing their fingers gently.

“Okay?” Joy squeezes her hand back tight when she nods. It’s cute. Though the lack of a second hand doesn’t actually help the process of making an injection. Everything in Yerim screams at the level of unprofessionalism, but she shuts this part of herself down. The patient’s comfort is just as important as carrying out the operation. Probably. Plus Yerim can’t really fuck up an injection at this point of her studying.

When Yerim puts away the syringe, sanitizes her hands again and takes the needle, Joy asks her: “Tell me how everything went in the uni?”

At that, Yerim can’t hold back a sigh.

“You really do not want me to be talking while I am pinching you with a needle, Joy. I am far from being experienced.” Joy sighs right back at her, and Yerim softens immediately. Joy has a certain effect on her. “You can talk, if you want? It will keep you distracted.”

“What do you want to hear?” Yerim can feel Joy tensing a bit again, like it wasn’t clear she is not a fan of personal details.

“Anything, really. Favourite drama? Favourite actor? Family? Food?” Joy relaxes at that, seeing that the topic isn’t really important. Yerim tries not to pry. She hooks a needle through the skin with a needle holder, taking time to measure the depth and width of one stitch.

“I really don’t have those. I mean, actors or drama,” Joy says after some thinking, “never had actual time for it. My favourite food is ice cream though.”

Yerim remembers the ice cream-shaped coin purse Joy had with her the day they met, and smiles. Joy looks at her curiously.

“I’ll let you know you look interesting, smiling at my wounded stomach with a needle in hands. What is it?”

“It’s just cute,” Yerim says, carefully pulling the needle through the skin a second time. “Your love for ice-cream, that is. Not the wound part.”

Joy chuckles lightly and then continues, “I saw a photo on your wall. Is that your family?” Joy waves her hand toward the family picture on Yerim’s wall. Yerim murmurs an affirmative to not get distracted from a process, and begins working on a knot.

A second later she asks, just to keep Joy talking: “Do you have siblings?”

“Kinda. They are there, but we haven’t seen each other for a while.” Yerim only registers it after she’s done with the first knot — that Joy doesn’t sound sad, ike it’s not a family issue she is talking about.

Joy looks down on her stomach and points at a droplet of blood running down from the wound from where Yerim has pulled the edges together.

“Ooh, it’s bleeding,” she says with much more emotional involvement than she had about her family.

“It’s fine,” Yerim says, and Joy smiles at her, sparkles in her eyes.

“I know.” Right, a lot of previous experiences with wounds like this. Yerim pointedly doesn’t think of how Joy might have been stitched all those previous times, if the thought of anesthesia scares her, but being stitched with instruments not meant for stitching doesn’t.

Yerim gets back to the second knot, prompting Joy: “So how long is a while? Which you haven’t seen your family in?”

Joy hums, pondering. “Twenty years, I think. Maybe a bit less. It’s a long story.”

What a usual everyday thing: ‘I haven’t seen my siblings for the most part of my life, and the sky is beautiful today.’ It is another thing that proves that Joy just lives in a different world. Sure, sometimes Yerim argues with her parents, and doesn’t want to see them for like maybe entire week. But twenty years just. Seems a little excessive. From those tidbits Yerim knows about Joy, she seems kind of— lonely?

“Do you have someone?” Yerim blurts out and then realizes how that sounded, blushing immediately. She didn’t mean it like that, she really didn’t.

Joy looks surprised and pleased for a second that Yerim dares look at her from the wound.

“Why? Are you interested, Yeri-ya?”

Yerim feels her cheeks getting warm and tries to make it seem like she is completely concentrated on her work. (Which she is, now having cut the thread and moving onto the next stitch; she’s just multitasking).

Joy chuckles, “I am single.”

“Good to know,” Yerim says, masking her confusing feelings with a ton of sarcasm. “But I meant, like. Family. Do you have anyone to go back to?”

Yerim probably has no reason to feel concern for Joy. Surely she can protect herself, she has been doing just that this far, but Yerim somehow worries anyway. Joy stares at her amusedly, but then answers, her tone soft, almost silky: “Yeah, I do. I have people I will turn to with all of this. Thank you.”

The conversation lulls a bit after that, with Yerim doing the stitches and Joy occasionally remembering something. She remembers a song she heard the morning she got stabbed.

“It got stuck in my head,” she complains while Yerim puts on the last stitch. “That fucker poked me with a knife, and all I had in my head was _shy-shy-shy~_ ”

Yerim finishes the stitch and applies the bandage carefully. She stands up, covers her bed by one of her towels and helps Joy stand up, too, carefully moving her to the bed. When she’s done with that, Yerim goes to the kitchen, brings some water and gives Joy the painkillers. She swallows them down, drinking up the whole glass of water in one go, so Yerim brings a bottle and puts it near the bed. Seungwan might question the disappearance of the bottle from the fridge. Oh well. Yerim will just wing it when the situation comes, probably.

“Can I stay at your place for today?” Joy asks after she finds a comfortable enough position. “It’s not the best time for me to move. My team will pick me up tomorrow, and I’ll stop bothering you.”

Yerim doesn’t think long, just nods. She realizes she hasn’t even thought past the operation. Joy needs rest, and Yerim would only freak out more if she decided to leave for her criminal duty or something right now. She helps Joy pull on a blanket, self-indulgently stroking her shoulders through the fabric, and starts picking up the instruments and all the used cloth from the floor. She rolls the shower screen up and washes the blood off of it in the bathroom. Putting it back is much more troublesome than taking it off had been, but she manages. She sets up the laundry, throwing all the things which had blood on them in the washing machine, including Joy’s jacket, and puts just maybe a bit more detergent than she should have.

By the time Yerim comes back to her room, Joy is asleep. Yerim looks at the clock and realizes she can still make it to the afternoon classes, so she picks up her bag, removes the robe from there, and writes a short note, allowing Joy to use whatever she might need, as well as food from the fridge, and telling she’ll be back at six. She puts it on the night stand near the water bottle before leaving.

Chemistry classes come first even if you had a really, really hard day.

 

***

 

There is still about 20 minutes before classes, so Yerim stops by her favourite street food kiosk and grabs a coffee with a hot-dog, hoping that food will help her process everything that happened. She can almost imagine her mom being unhappy about her life choices. Although, all things considered, eating junk food is much less of a problem compared to today’s events.

When Yerim just got accepted into the university, her mom was sure she would pick something nice, like pediatrics. Working in a family kid’s hospital was always a chance for her, a preferable chance at that; even most teachers tried to insist on her switching courses. Pediatrics is nice, kids are nice, everyone likes women working with kids, and most importantly — it would be an easy way for her to follow, easy, without worrying about how to find a workplace.

Instead she chose moving out, going to Busan, entering one of the hardest university departments, with no chances to find a good job on her own afterwards. That’s Kim Yerim for you — always determined to take the challenges without considering the consequences.

Yerim isn’t actually surprised with what she did today. It’s just like all the times before, when she was dying from anxiety inside, but her body was moving ahead of her emotions and logic. Today is just a more extreme version of the same behaviour pattern.

Thinking before doing was never Yerim’s main skill, or rather a skill at all.

“Yerim! Hi!” when Yerim settles on her favourite place in the classroom, Dahyun just moves all her stuff to the same place, beaming at her, “How are you? Seungwan-unnie told me you skipped a lecture but I didn’t believe her!”

It is usually easy for Yerim to be friendly with everyone, but now it feels like a light film is put between her and the world around. It flows as usual, while she exists and acts in a completely new setting, a dimension she didn’t notice before now secluding her. She felt in a similar way when she went home for holidays and talked to her sisters after having lived in Busan for some time. Like she couldn’t match the speed of life there any longer.

But Dahyun is looking at her expectantly, waiting for any comments as you would in a two-way conversation, so Yerim laughs effortlessly, now feeling at ease with a new, less serious lie (because Dahyun actually knows they didn’t have any submission today and it is just a miracle Seungwan seemed not to mention anything about it): “Food poisoning. I tried cooking again yesterday, and failed dramatically. I guess I should leave it to unnie altogether.”

It is also almost true. Without Seungwan’s cooking she would probably end up in the hospital with some gastroenterological mess inside, either from self-cooked meals or ramyun. Dahyun doesn’t question further, just hugs her, mumbling something cute like ‘poor unnie’, but then the doors open, and the class immediately falls silent when Kim Minseok enters.

Despite his sweet appearance with all the round cheeks, and soft voice, and cute mannerisms sometimes slipping through his university-appropriate interior, all of his classes are known as particularly unpassable, having piles upon piles of the homework impossible to finish. Unsurprisingly, Yerim likes his classes, as Kim-seonsaengnim is just very passionate about chemistry and really good with explanations. As well as making homework a living hell, for sure, but what harm can a little (very much) homework cause to her nerd heart. At least she is a hundred percent sure that nothing in this world will ever erase this chemistry knowledge from her brain. Though she thought the exactly same thing about prescriptions, and yet.

It is just an exhausting rush through the wall of knowledge for the next two hours, and they don’t even leave for break to finish hysterically writing down everything seonsaengnim has to teach them about the reaction of eosinophiles to different chemicals.

Around the time Yerim feels both her hand and brains going numb they hear a knock and a squeak of the door opening as Zhang-seonsaengnim slips in. The questioning raise of Kim Minseok’s brow is so elegant that Yerim thinks she would rather die right now than see that face directed on her ever in her life.

Zhang-seonsaengnim though seems cool with everything and just looks around the class searching for someone. Oh shit.

“Can I please borrow Kim Yerim-ssi for a moment?” Once he finds her and makes a brief eye contact, not really meaning anything but still making Yerim shiver and avert her eyes, Zhang Yixing turns back to Minseok, “She is involved in one of my projects and I urgently need her.”

Yerim considers jumping out of the window while they don’t watch. It would probably be very smart. However, the window is too far away and getting to it will require jumping over Dahyun, so that is not really an option. Someone will stop her on her way.

“It can’t wait for another hour?” this eyebrow quirk is probably sharp enough to kill students during exams. But, after exchanging probably a very information-charged eye contact with Zhang Yixing, Kim-seonsaengnim, to Yerim’s mortification, nods. “Sure. Kim-ssi, I will e-mail you the homework and materials to make sure you miss nothing.”

Yerim’s desire to jump out of the window only grows on that, but she just manages to say her thanks and smile at Kim Minseok apologetically. By looking at her he probably thinks she is very reluctant to leave chemistry, since chemistry is a top priority in Kim Minseok’s world. For Yerim sitting however many classes of chemistry and stepping off the roof are equally attractive prospects right now, as opposed to being left with Zhang Yixing.

She follows Zhang-seonsaengnim out of the classroom, almost hitting Dahyun with her bag while trying to leave as quietly as possible, and mumbles apologies. She also trips on her legs when walking past Kim-seonsaengnim. Everything except for her ministrations is completely silent, especially Zhang Yixing. Yerim is so doomed.

 

For a couple of moments they just walk together down the hall. Yixing keeps silent, and Yerim doesn’t feel brave enough to break that. Even though it’s technically a class time, they meet many people on their way, so Zhang Yixing leads Yerim to one of the fire exits, where there’s no one around.

All the way Yerim keeps brainstorming about her actions. Should she just directly apologize about the prescription, or about the instruments, too? Then again, what if Zhang-seonsaengnim doesn’t know any of it and is just really concerned about the class she missed and about that project, even though there isn’t any project and that seems like a blatant lie just to get her from a chemistry class? Well if he was just concerned, he wouldn’t have led her to the place without people. Oh god. But what if he doesn’t know all of it, just maybe about the prescription or the instruments, and Yerim only makes it worse for herself? She decides to stay as cool as possible, no matter what Zhang-seonsaengnim has got in stock for her.

“Seonsaengnim,” she starts, her voice trembling, then gets pissed at herself and continues with pointed confidence: “I am really sorry about missing your lecture, but I...”

Yixing turns to her, eyes soft and worried. He doesn’t seem angry, so that’s a start. He shakes his head lightly, and Yerim shuts up surprisedly.

“Even though I would prefer you not to skip any of my classes in favor of other assignments, with your current marks you can afford missing a couple of lectures,” Yerim probably looks blown by the truth revealing itself in front of her eyes, namely Zhang Yixing telling her she can slack off a couple of times. He chuckles at her good-naturedly, but then a worried frown appears on his face again. “However, I am concerned about this ‘assignment’ of yours involving Park-ssi.”

“What? Who?” Now Yerim is confused for good, and her surprise is completely true, because out of all topics she imagined Zhang-seonsaengnim to start on, that was definitely the least likely. “Do you mean Park Chanyeol?”

She considers being offended, even, because really, what kind of ‘assignment’ Zhang Yixing assumed she had with Park fucking Chanyeol of all people?

“Who?” Yixing gapes at her confusedly, possibly reenacting her own face, then just gestures for her to stop, and she obliges before saying anything even more incriminating. “I meant Park Sooyoung-ssi. I saw you talking to her on Sunday evening a couple of weeks ago.”

Sunday evening? Which is when Yerim met Joy for the first time. Also when Seungwan saw Zhang Yixing leave the university, subsequently ruining the rumor of him living at work. Which means that Park Sooyoung he’s talking about is Joy. Oh shit.

Yerim is probably very bad at hiding her emotions since Yixing nods, satisfied that now she gets the topic correctly. That starts her speaking at a nervous speed.

“Seonsaengnim, thank you for worrying about me but I just got lost in the unfamiliar district and that girl walked me out. I didn’t even know her name until now.” The last bit, at least, is true. The first is too, but it has additional layers.

Yixing looks like he doesn’t believe her at all.

“Kim-ssi, please listen to me carefully,” he says, perfectly polite but stern. Yerim cowers. “The girl we are talking about is one of those people who never do a favor just because they can. I just want to make sure that you are not involved with geondal more than you ever need to.”

Well, the geondal part is certainly a surprise. After seeing Joy’s tattoo Yerim assumed that maybe she is from kkangpae, or something like that, but geondal… It all makes weird sense now, though. How those street guys were afraid of her, how she has all those scars and that tattoo on her skin. It also makes sense, how she has someone to turn to. Of course she does. A team of sorts, that’ll pick her up tomorrow.

Yerim tries to look shocked at that fact, although, truly, her professor’s extensive knowledge about it worries her much more. She thinks wildly that she’d always assumed Kim Minseok was the murderous one, but maybe not, after all.

“Wow, I had no idea. How can that be?” She feels more panicked at the look of disbelief on Zhang Yixing’s face, but hey, whatever makes it look plausible. “But, seonsaengnim, seriously, it was just an accident.”

A long accident with a bit of a continuous sequel, okay. But still an accident. Yerim looks at the staircase behind Zhang Yixing’s back, trying to find any possible way to escape the situation, and notices that one of the stairs has red stains on it. Either blood, or, most likely, paint.

“So that has absolutely nothing to do with you missing the lecture today while being in operating room 506 alone?” Zhang-seonsaengnim presses, and Yerim’s mind goes blank with panic. “I am not going to lie that I have eyes everywhere, Kim-ssi, but I did get scolded by a reception lady for not looking after my student leaving things in the lab”.

He looks at her for some time, maybe giving her a chance to say something, but Yerim physically can not. Zhang Yixing closes his eyes briefly, and then looks at her again, placing his hand on her shoulder. Yerim freezes.

“Look, Kim-ssi, I just want to help you. You really should not get involved with Bae family--” But before Yerim can answer anything, or ask who the hell _Bae_ is, she hears one so familiar voice once again.

  
“Yeri-ya!”

God bless you, Chanyeol, whatever your reason for being in the uni today, is. You, and Seungwan, and your future adorable kids Yerim might never see because she is an idiot, and idiots die young.

Her following actions aren’t ruled out by any plan, her body moving before her brain catches up as she screams in the most hysterical voice she could muster.

“No! Get your hand off me! I don’t want to!” catching Yixing almost startled as she pushes him away and runs out the fire exit, setting off the fire alarm attached to it on her way.

The last thing she hears is Chanyeol saying loudly, “What the fuck is happening?”

Yerim runs as long as she can, stopping only halfway home, her heart beating from both adrenaline and exercise. Oh God, what did she do just now.

 

***

 

Once again Yerim comes home breathless and only manages to exhale and relax for one moment before Seungwan pokes her head through the door to her room.

Seungwan. Right. Yerim lied to her about her assignment. She lied so much today it’s getting hard to keep track of.

“Hungry?” Seungwan singsongs, and something is off. She doesn’t come to hug Yerim, going straight to the kitchen. She doesn’t start putting on food, instead looking at Yerim expectantly, so she just leaves her backpack by the door and goes to the kitchen.

She’s not hungry, she’s exhausted from nerves and there’s a wounded criminal in her room whom Seungwan doesn’t have to know about. She hasn’t had anything better than that hotdog and a cookie though, so she’d better eat something.

“A little?” Yerim tries, and Seungwan smiles at her, tight-lipped. “Um. Um. What’s wrong?”

Everything is wrong, Yerim knows for a fact, but Seungwan doesn’t. So—

“Yeri-ya,” Seungwan says, setting a plate in front of her and sitting down on the opposite side of the table. She doesn’t smile anymore. Yerim picks up panicking again. “Why didn’t you tell me you were gay?”

What.

“What,” Yerim voices out.

Seungwan lets out a huge sigh, rubbing her forehead.

“Why do I have to learn such significant information of your identity through your girlfriend whom you snuck in our shared apartment?”

“What,” Yerim repeats. All of her speech organs seem to give out, producing a hysterical screech. She for sure isn’t hungry now. Although she is starting to understand the correlation between all of that, her brain is too slow to catch up.

Seungwan seems to see that, as she sighs all over again and says pointedly: “Joy.”

Oookay. Okay. Fuck. So Joy might have used the bathroom or whatever, and bumped into Seungwan. That’s fucky, but no worse than stealing from a hospital. The girlfriend part is still unclear to Yerim but she decides to just roll with it for the time being.

“Uuum,” she stutters out helplessly. “Would it help if I said that’s the first time I snuck her in?”

“This is literally the very last thing bothering me, but thank you I guess,” Seungwan says, but she smiles a little. A little. It dies down quickly, replaced by a frown. “Yeri-ya. I do understand that coming-out is hard and scary, but you shouldn’t have been so secretive with me. It didn’t need to be your girlfriend who was kind of forced to tell me everything. I mean, you being… gay.” There is a small pause before the last word, Seungwan probably trying to settle down her thoughts on that. “It is certainly new and I do wonder when you figured that out, but,” Seungwan looks helpless and Yerim wants to die for making her sad, “but you know I love you anyway.”

 _Would you love me if you knew I stole from the hospital in order to help a criminal, and then presumably accused my all-time favourite professor of sexual harassment_ , Yerim thinks.

“Thank you, unnie,” she croaks out instead. “I um. That means a lot. I love you too. You are my best friend.”

She feels like she cannot fully appreciate the sentiment, just worried that Seungwan is there so confused because of her horrible decision making.

“That is nice,” Seungwan says, and Yerim feels something unsettling again, like there is more to this conversation. “I’ve already told your girlfriend you are both okay, but maybe warn me next time you invite her over. That was unpleasant. Now that we cleared out the worst part, what’s that mess with Chanyeol-oppa you got me in?”

Oh god damn it, Chanyeol. It’s ridiculous how Yerim didn’t think about consequences of telling anything to Chanyeol, when it was so obvious. Of course he asked Seungwan to Lotte Water Park as soon as he got a chance.

Which means he probably told her that he met Yerim in the hospital at the time that she was presumably finishing her assignment for Kim Minseok’s class.

“Which part of the mess are we talking about?” Yerim tries cautiously.

“Every part, but I suppose I’ll just start listing,” Seungwan says, and it’s now clear that she can’t hold her irritation in any longer. “First, did I ask you to get Chanyeol involved in something I wasn’t even seriously planning to do? You know I don’t have money to go places at the moment, and now out of all people Park Chanyeol offered to pay for us both, and I feel terrible. Well, to be honest, not really terrible, but it sure did neutralize the excitement of Lotte Park for me. And what’s worse I even couldn’t ask him myself, almost like I need a friend to ask for me! Like I am a spoiled child or something.”

Yerim picks up chopsticks and pokes around the plate just to do something with her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she says to her food, and then forces herself to look at Seungwan and repeat, looking her in the eye, “I’m sorry. I should have asked before I did it, because it’s your life and your relationship, and I definitely shouldn’t play a match-maker.” She pauses and frowns, “But I really thought you liked Chanyeol-oppa?”

Seungwan chokes on the next words she tries to say, and goes a little pink, quickly covering her cheeks with her palms.

“Can I please work it out by myself? Clearly you didn’t want me interfering with your personal life,” she points out, putting her hands down on the table. Yerim nods eagerly. Seungwan’s features smooth out into a more neutral, if still a bit conflicted expression. “So. As much as this part was upsetting for me. Why were you in a hospital at all?”

Here it goes. Yerim just looks at Seungwan, petrified.

“Weren’t you supposed to do your assignment?” Seungwan continues to ask, and then Yerim sees the moment the realization dawn on her. “Or I guess there wasn’t any assignment. There was a girlfriend instead. Honestly, the girlfriend makes more sense than a failed homework, when it comes to you, Yerim.”

Yerim lets out a hesitant nervous laugh. Seungwan smiles back for the entire split second before realizing something else.

“But that still doesn’t explain what you were doing in the hospital. Like— okay, I can understand why you lied to me about an assignment, if you were so afraid of coming out to me. But it just doesn’t make sense! If you wanted to spend time with your girlfriend, why did you go to the hospital instead? To meet Chanyeol and tell him to take me to Lotte Water Park? Yerim.”

Now she not only doesn’t want to eat, she also feels sick. Oh great. Her friendship with Seungwan is crumbling to pieces two minutes into establishing a new trust based on Yerim’s apparent gayness.

“I honestly,” Yerim starts and pauses for a long time. She honestly what? Is a piece of human garbage, a liar and now a criminal? Yerim swallows it all down. “I honestly don’t know what to tell you.”

They look at each other for a minute or so. Seungwan purses her lips together, clearly trying to come up with an explanation.

“Is that really all you can provide me with?” Seungwan asks, a pleading tone to her voice. Yerim feels even more terrible now. Seungwan is never truly angry; she believes that everyone has a reason for their actions and that she can be a supportive friend, if not understand then at least listen.

Yerim just wants Seungwan to become a great doctor, to go out on stupid dates and definitely not live knowing that her friend and flatmate is a criminal. A gay criminal.

(Some part of her thanks God or some other heavenly creature that Chanyeol didn’t tell Seungwan about the Zhang Yixing accident yet. Oh god, she will have to explain it to Chanyeol somehow. She is not even going to think of how to behave around Zhang Yixing anymore.)

“It really is all,” she says. “I’m really. Very sorry. I promise it wasn’t all to make your life miserable or because I don’t trust you.” She almost tucks on a ‘it’s not you it’s me’ because that’s clearly the only thing her brain is capable of. It sounds gross and patchy as this whole situation already is.

Seungwan inhales a great intake of air and holds it in for a few seconds, letting it out slowly.

“Okay,” she says in a voice which implies that nothing is and never will be okay. “I have homework to do. An upcoming date to deal with. You should eat. If you need anything, I’m still mad but willing to communicate.”

With that Seungwan stands up from her seat and leaves the kitchen. Yerim looks at her plate. She is really ought to eat. She has— Oh god. She has an assignment for Kim Minseok’s class for real now.

Yerim doesn’t think she’ll be able to stuff anything in her mouth and not puke immediately, but Seungwan’s cooking skills are, as always, heavenly. And so Yerim eats everything together with her jumbling nerves.

She cleans her plate and about the kitchen a little, because it calms her somewhat. She tiptoes past the closed door to Seungwan’s room, picking up her backpack from where she left it and quietly opening the door to her room.

A heap of blankets that is Joy doesn’t budge even the smallest bit. That understandable; her body needs rest.

For the short moment Yerim’s anxious mind tells her what if Joy has died of blood loss but the voice of reason and higher education quickly smothers it down. Thankfully.

Her phone when she fishes it out of the backpack blinks with a new email. Yerim’s stomach swoops down at the name of Kim Minseok; it’s become an instinctive reaction over the years.

Luckily, Kim Minseok is still just Yerim’s professor at the university, who doesn’t know anything about geondal and— and how _Park Sooyoung_ is connected with it. Probably. Hopefully he doesn’t know. That being said, Kim Minseok just subtly reprimands Yerim for favouring Zhang Yixing’s project more than chemistry the almighty, and attaches homework. Which is colossal. As usual. Yerim feels the surge of relief washing over her at the image of chemical formulas.

Somewhere halfway through the wonders of chemical bonds Joy makes a sound and flops around Yerim’s bed, freeing out of the blanket. Her hair is messy around her face, and she pouts in her sleep. Yerim coos quietly, can’t really help it, and has to suppress the impulse of squeezing her cheeks. She is your patient, for fuck’s sake, Yerim. You wouldn’t go around pinching patiens’ cheeks, right?

Then she looks at her arm hanging down the bed and thinks back on what Zhang-seonsaengnim told her, and that dampens the mood somewhat. Quite a lot. This is her cue to get back to ochem.

 

***

 

After she finishes with an assignment, she showers. Seungwan’s door is still shut, and she is definitely still mad at her, but it is not like Yerim has any idea how to explain all of this better than Joy (or especially Yerim herself) did. Yerim changes to her pink pajamas — shorts and a t-shirt with a Hello Kitty print.  
Oh, sure, Yerim, during the day we save criminals and at night we wear Hello Kitty pajamas.

Yerim goes back to her room and checks on Joy before switching off the light. Joy is sleeping, breath even and face peaceful. Yerim touches her forehead carefully just to check if she has a fever, but the medicine seem to be working fine. Joy is so beautiful like that. She is beautiful always, though, so that’s just stating the obvious. Her skin is tanner than Yerim’s (probably due to Yerim’s nerd lifestyle; now that the saving criminals thing got implemented in her life it might change, too). She has a few very light freckles across her cheeks, on the tender under-eye skin, with soft shadow from her fluffy lashes covering them. She’s opened her mouth slightly in her sleep, and her lips look so soft, Yerim almost wants to touch them. Just, you know, because she’s curious how soft they could really be. And also because Joy is unbearably pretty.

Yerim shakes her head and switches off the light. Gosh, girlfriend. Yerim understands why Joy said it — because she had to think fast and it was probably the best way she could answer without actually outing herself. But now Yerim ends up with all of this. What will she say to Seungwan after Joy rests a little and leaves, possibly for good? ‘I changed my mind so we broke up’, or what.

Yerim heaves out a sigh and puts one knee on the bed, hesitating. There is only one blanket, which Joy is covered with now. Yerim took her bed cover to the dry cleaning yesterday, and the second duvet is in Seungwan’s room because she gets super cold at nights. Also Seungwan’s room is probably prohibited for Yerim until she finds a way to explain herself. She lies down, careful to keep some distance from Joy not to disturb her sleep, and tosses, trying to find comfort. It’s hard to be comfy when there is a girl in your bed, and she’s also taken the only blanket.

“Hey,” Joy’s voice is a bit hoarse from sleep and probably stress, and it jerks Yerim out of her thoughts, suddenly loud in the quiet room.

“Oh. Hey. How— how are you?” Yerim blushes even though she is sure Joy couldn’t read her mind.

Or maybe she could, who knows. God that would be mortifying.

Joy seems to think for a second. “Could have been better, but for a person who got stabbed like 7 hours ago that would do. Your hands turn miracles.”

Yerim almost chokes on air. She is no better than Seungwan when she talks about Chanyeol, good thing Seungwan doesn’t get to witness it.

“Well, I’m glad I am not tortured for nothing in the uni,” Yerim says, and it comes out harsher than she intended. Even though she would have never considered her bitchiness as too harsh only a couple days ago. Oh well. She has a wounded girl in her bed, she ought to be softer.

Joy smiles nonetheless, probably used to the rude tone as being a part of the geondal would imply, and stretches, carefully reaching to the other side of the bed to pick up the glass and drink some water. When she turns back, she doesn’t look sleepy anymore, eyes open and alert, catching light from the outside and shining. Pretty.

She seems to notice that Yerim is still on the other side of the bed.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asks, voice still a little coarse but far more awake. “Your room doesn’t have the best heating.”

“I am. I am fine, it’s,” Yerim falters and falls silent. God it’s her day for not knowing what to answer.

Joy laughs surprisedly, sudden, as if it only got to her now. Her laugh is silly. “Seriously? Don’t be stupid.” She holds the blanket up, carefully, slowly, not to bother her wound.

Yerim’s first urge is to find some stupid excuse, but then, why actually bother after today. She gets under the blanket (it immediately feels far more comfortable), but stays away from Joy, holding her body tense. Joy sighs and moves closer, so close Yerim can feel the warmth from her body.

“Come on! I don’t bite. Well, unless you ask me,” she says coyly, her usual playfulness seeping back in her voice.

Well fuck. You thought you can’t blush more, Kim Yerim? Here you are!

Yerim feels stiff. She doesn’t want Joy to think that she tries to stay away, it’s just. Joy is really pretty. Which is really sudden coming from Yerim, sure, but. But she is like, attractive pretty. And all this flirting, and this talk about girlfriends which Yerim still doesn’t get fully, if at all. She is just a nerd, she isn’t good in relationships. Any relationships, it seems from her recent interactions with Seungwan and Zhang-seonsaengnim.

Joy chuckles. “I can see your ears burn even in the dark. Adenylyl cyclase, right?”

“You memorized?” Yerim asks, genuinely surprised, looking up at Joy. So maybe this has been a mistake. From this close, her beauty is crushing, especially when she answers with expression far too serious.

“I googled. Your story got me right in the heart.”

Yerim snorts, and Joy’s exterior breaks immediately as she starts to laugh, trying to keep it down a bit, probably not to bother Seungwan. Her laugh is so stupid. Yerim laughs along, feeling a bit more relaxed now. Well, laughter decreases stress cells.

“Sorry about the shit I told Seungwan,” Joy tells her when they calmed down. “I couldn’t think of anything better and I didn’t even know she was home.”

“That’s okay,” Yerim says, realizing with a start that it actually is okay. It’s a new feeling; as of late, literally nothing has been okay in Yerim’s life. “I mean, I am glad to know she would still love me if I were gay.”

“Oh, wow,” Joy falls silent for a bit. Yerim watches her bite her lips and absolutely doesn’t feel weird about it in any way. “Yeah, I didn’t think about that also. Like, are you not out? Or, um, do you just do boys?”

She phrases the question so oddly, like. Like it’s more okay to not ‘just do boys’ in her world, and Yerim would be the weird one if she didn’t. Gosh.

“I don’t. I mean, I don’t do relationships at all? I had a boyfriend once, like, in high school. But it wasn’t anything, obviously. Gosh, why’d I even tell you that!” Yerim covers her eyes with her hand, unable to handle the embarrassment. She was never comfortable talking about her feelings; only teasing others about theirs.

“You are adorable, you know that, right?” Joy’s voice sounds soft and affectionate. It’s weird that it’s addressed to Yerim, after she’d made a fool of herself.

“Can nerds be adorable?” Yerim huffs. With the way she hold her hand it’s a little hard to breathe, but she doesn’t pull it away.

“Can a stabbed criminal with no makeup be pretty?” Joy asks, mimicking Yerim’s intonation.

“You are pretty!” Yerim whispers before she can even realise what she says. Oh well. That is anyway just stating the obvious.

“I know. And you’re adorable,” Joy says with the same wonder as before. It’s so strange. Strange but nice — Joy’s attention, her all too soft voice, her jokes. The way she compliments Yerim, even if Yerim has hard time believing it.

“Stop that!” Yerim closes her fingers to cover her eyes completely, and then she feels Joy touching her hand.

Joy shifts closer, crumpling the blanket up between them, tugging on Yerim’s hand, so she will get it down. Yerim follows.

“Gosh, you being shy is bad for my heart rate. Are you embarrassed that you like me?” Joy smiles and looks her right in the eyes and that’s too much, too intense, Yerim kinda wants to run away, or tell a medical joke, or just cover her eyes again, but Joy holds her hand and she doesn’t think she’s going to get it back.

“I’m— ” Yerim croaks out, not even knowing what she is about to say, “I am straight”.

So that’s one interesting statement, Seungwan’s voice in her head says.

To her surprise, that doesn’t discourage Joy even a bit, and she just smiles even brighter, soft and playful.

“Okay, sure. So you do not want me to kiss you?”

No one’s ever been so direct with Yerim. She didn’t even want anyone to be so direct with her. But Joy is. Joy is different. Like she plays the same game as everyone does, but by completely different rules, and lives in a completely different world. It’s enticing.

That’s really why Yerim didn’t call the ambulance. Did everything she did in the morning.

Have a safe life at father’s hospital, date a nice guy, choose therapy or something _nice_. Too bad something nice isn’t really enough. Sometimes Yerim wonders if Seungwan feels the same, but it’s like she doesn’t. Like there is no this constant trigger deep down, something else, something different she wants to be.

Someone different.

Joy doesn’t say anything while Yerim thinks, just watching her have epiphanies.

Yerim really wants to kiss her, if she is honest with herself. Her lips are so close, so soft. Her body is warm under the blanket. Yerim wonders what it’s gonna be like — to stop pretending she doesn’t want all the things she shouldn’t.

Joy doesn’t smile anymore, just calm and actually serious this time.

“Have you ever kissed a girl?”

Yerim’s heart beats so fast, it’s almost scary. It’s not normal, and Yerim’s brain automatically starts listing possible reasons and reactions her body goes through. Her thoughts die down quickly under Joy’s eyes, but her heartbeat doesn’t slow down. Joy probably can hear it, but Yerim doesn’t seem to mind anymore.

“No,” she says quietly. She suddenly feels light, lighter than normal. She feels as if everything around her is moving, the whole world, even though her surroundings are still.

“Do you want me to kiss you?” Joy repeats her question, pushing Yerim to the obvious decision. But Yerim finds herself really enjoying being pushed like that.

Joy lets go of her hand, pushes the hair out of Yerim’s face (her fingertips are rough, but she is gentle), shifts closer. Yerim can feel her body, its warmth and strength. It feels a thousand times more intense and intimate than even the sex she had before.

Joy strokes Yerim’s cheekbone with her thumb, looking at her closely, calmly.

“Yeri-ya, tell me.” Her voice conveys more emotion, playful as ever, and it dissipates some of Yerim’s tension.

It’s still difficult to push the sounds out of her mouth, but not for the lack of certainty. Yerim manages a quiet, “Yeah.”

Joy doesn’t continue teasing any longer. She leans closer to Yerim and lets their mouths touch briefly. Yerim can barely feel that, but her heart is about to burst.

Joy kisses her softly, mouth closed at first, but then she brings her hand to Yerim’s chin, getting a better hold, licking her lower lip. Yerim doesn’t know what to do with herself.

Joy pulls away just slightly, their noses touching, and Yerim sees sparkles in her eyes.

“Hey, don’t be scared, okay?” Joy says, and heaves out a sigh, as if she’s also breathless. “There isn’t only one right way to do it. Just let it go and enjoy.”

Some part of Yerim still wants to bite back, because, wow, such a useful piece of advice. Except words get stuck on their way out, and Yerim also kind of gets it. Relax. It is like before the surgery, there is no point getting stiff. Relax.

This time Yerim leans into the kiss. Joy licks her lip again, bites down softly, tugging. Kisses her again, this time deeper, licking into her mouth. Slow. She puts her hand on Yerim’s hipbone, where the t-shirt doesn’t cover the skin fully, and slips her hand under. Yerim trembles, but it feels so nice, she doesn’t want it to stop.

Yerim wants to hold Joy too, but remembers about the bandages and just cradles her face in her hands.

Joy hand doesn’t wonder much, and she also doesn’t seem too intent on intensifying the kiss. She strokes Yerim’s back lightly, carefully, and continues kissing her slowly, until Yerim stops trembling and relaxes into lazy, soft kisses. When Joy breaks away, they stay like this, their faces close, still touching each other.

“Thank you for today,” Joy says, her voice lower and a bit rough.

“Was it to thank me?” Yerim doesn’t think it was. Doesn’t want it to be.

“No. That was to say you look really sexy in your pajamas. And when you are Yerim-seonsaengnim, too.” Joy pecks her on the lips one more time and giggles into the kiss.

Yerim laughs and squishes her cheeks and kisses her offended face, and then they kiss some more, until Yerim remembers something. She probably should have remembered it in the first place, but she got a little distracted.

She backs out a little, not to forget again, and says, “When I got back to uni my professor cornered me to talk.”

“Oh? The one you stole the kit from? Was he angry?” Joy’s voice sounds lazy and relaxed, and Yerim doesn’t want to break that moment, but still feels like she needs to.

“Not yet, but that's not the point. He told me something I didn’t really get. It seems like he saw us when you walked me home and recognised you?”

Joy tenses, her grip on Yerim’s hand becoming somewhat tighter.

“What did he say?” she asks, now more alert. Yerim sighs at her frowning expression.

“I ran away actually, so he didn’t manage to say much. Zhang-seonsaengnim told me I shouldn’t get involved with Bae family.” Yerim is still curious about this part, honestly. So Joy is Park, right? Then who the hell are Bae family?

“Well, your professor is not wrong,” Joy chuckles, but it’s not light anymore, as she seems really concerned. “Is that all you heard? Does he know where you live?”

“No, I don’t think so. I wrote my home address in all the documents, and I am quite sure none of my friends will tell him now, since I...” The memory of their conversation flashes in her head and she almost groans from mortification, quickly changing the topic, “Well he also told me that you’re not just a street criminal and that isn’t a game, but that wasn’t new.”

Joy’s eyes widen a little, surprise clear in her expression. “It wasn’t?”

Yerim shrugs, her and Joy’s shoulders rubbing together. “I saw your tattoo. And your scars. And your hands. And, well, your body,” she adds shyly, Joy chuckling. “It wasn’t that hard to figure out that you’re not just a random shoplifter or something.”

It seems that now, out of all times, Yerim finally feels sleepy, feeling relaxed enough after that long and surreal day.

“You seem weirdly okay with that,” Joy tells her, and Yerim feels her touching her cheek. She sleepily leans closer into the warmth.

“I am,” she mumbles and falls asleep.

***

The very first thing Yerim hears in the morning is Seungwan’s angry voice yelling, “Who the hell are you?!”, which is already concerning enough, followed by: “Seriously, one more step and I am calling the police!”

Next thing is Joy’s voice just next to her, hoarse and mostly annoyed, “Shit.”

The third thing is her door being opened and closed, Joy probably running to where Seungwan is, the bed now feeling cold and overly large. Yerim groans into a pillow, instinctively hiding away from the sunlight shining through her curtains. Why do these things continue to happen on a Saturday morning, when she finally planned to quietly study and sleep?

Her sleepiness fades somewhat when she realizes there might be a bunch of armed guys with knives or whatever, and they could attack Joy and Seungwan. Yerim forces herself out of the bed and rushes to follow Joy.

Instead of no less than an army in their apartment she finds Joy looking kinda guiltily at one not really armed man.

Having spent the whole yesterday with Joy, Yerim already got tired of pretty people, needless to say she doesn’t need any more in her life. But this man certainly didn’t ask her opinion. He’s tall-ish (compared to Chanyeol he’s tiny; compared to Kim Minseok-seonsaengnim he’s of a reasonable height) and just, frankly, very fucking handsome. So handsome that several facial piercings (on his lip, on his nose-bridge, on his ears — naturally) do not look out of place. Neither do colourful bright-red strands in his hair, nor does his intense eye makeup.

He glances at Yerim when she enters, pursing his lips and frowning, and Yerim is just stuck on thinking that criminals these days are sure something else (not that she has any previous experience; for all she knows, kkangpae could do drag), and also idly wondering what kind of eyeshadow could give such perfect deep red pigment.

He is kind of intimidating, all things considered — he is a stranger, a man, he pulls off the makeup and piercing perfectly, he could hide any kind of weapon under his leather jacket. He is, once again, someone from a different world that Joy brought to her all-too-calm house. Speaking of which, if things continue happening they way they do, Yerim will probably get kicked out both of the house and her friendship with Seungwan.

The situation itself is a little amusing, as Yerim just watches all three of them: Seungwan, looking angry and scared, the man, looking just angry, Joy, looking guilty. Seungwan speaks first, crossing her arms on her chest.

“Okay, so can anyone in this damn room explain me what the hell is going on and why I should not call the police?” Seungwan looks at Yerim, both furious but also with that shuttered look, like she is very scared and wants Yerim to explain all this and do something. Yerim hates to see Seungwan like this, but it is not like she has much to say.

Joy, though, becomes even more guilty, almost playfully so, and looks up at Seungwan, puppy-eyed. “I am really so sorry for the mess. It’s Baekhyun, he is my ex.” At that Seungwan turns to Joy, and Yerim is forever grateful to Joy for taking over this mess. But also…

“Your what?!” Yerim, Seungwan and Baekhyun himself seem equally surprised.

Joy turns to Baekhyun and says with a slight pressure in her voice, looking him dead in the eye: “Your ex, dear. I thought we’ve been through that. I get that it’s hard for you to accept, but baby, I am gay, so I can not date you anymore.”

The man — Baekhyun — has a weird emotion on his face, like he is this close to losing it and will either burst out laughing or start a fight. Meanwhile Yerim very clearly remembers Joy saying she was single.

“So let me get this, um, as straight as I can in this room— ,” Baekhyun says, measuring Joy with heavy eyes, “YOU cannot date ME, because YOU are gay?” It’s still hard to understand Baekhyun’s expressions because of the makeup, but his shoulders almost shake giving out the laughter.

“Yes, honey!” Yerim can’t see Joy’s face but she’s pretty sure Joy looks at him with all the same intent eyes, like she looked at her yesterday, even though her voice is light and nonchalant.

It seems to work, as Baekhyun’s face turns almost sad, and he looks back at Seungwan and says gravely, like a character from a Korean drama: “Oh I see, I was horribly rejected by my ice-hearted gay girlfriend. What can I do about that. Seungwan-ssi, I am so sorry for the mess here. I was just so disappointed when she called me, my heart is broken. Could you ever forgive me? I am so sorry to have frightened you.”

Now it’s Yerim who’s close to losing it and laughing, as much as she can in this situation. Baekhyun must have a whole lot of charm and uncanny amount of acting talent, as Seungwan nods sympathetically, totally buying it. She flushes bright red and clasps her hands together nervously.

“S-sure. I get it. It must’ve been hard for you,” she mumbles. Song Seungwan, a bright soul, is far too good for this world and nobody could ever come close to deserving a friend like her.

“It still is, my beautiful lady! It still is,” Baekhyun says, in a great sorrow. “Could you excuse me and, well, my ex-girlfriend for a couple of minutes? I think we have a lot to unpack right now.”

Seungwan hesitates for a moment, then asks Joy, concerned, “Are you sure that’s okay?”

Yerim honestly sometimes cannot believe the human Seungwan is. She is probably still angry at her, and by extension at Joy, and Baekhyun definitely scared her, but she still manages to worry about all of them.

Joy nods quickly, smiling, “Yeah, sure! Don’t worry, he is a softie, he would never hurt me!” At that Baekhyun huffs exasperatedly. “We just need some time to talk, don’t mind us. I am sorry again for all the chaos we’re causing.”

“Um, sure. It’s fine. I mean, welcome to the house,” Seungwan bows to Baekhyun and he politely bows back. Joy gestures at the door to Yerim’s room, and he follows her direction, waving his fingers at Yerim on his way.

“Don’t worry, he is a friend,” Joy whispers, passing Yerim. “Keep Seungwan company while we talk, okay?”

Yerim’s automatic instinct urges her to say that no, nothing is okay, but Joy winks at her, leaving her speechless and staring on the flower picture set up on the wall by the owners. Yerim hated it for months, but still didn’t take it off. Joy pats her on the shoulder, and Yerim turns, wanting some more details than just ‘he’s a friend and also possibly an ex’, but Joy’s already closed the door.  
  
She is now left alone with Seungwan, looking lost, disheveled and irritated. She absolutely does want a legit explanation of what the hell is happening in their flat, and it’s not like Yerim’s got any good explanations in her pocket. Especially remembering the part where both Joy and Baekhyun are criminals, and Yerim herself is not very sure they are safe.

“Well,” Yerim starts and immediately cowers under Seungwan’s gaze. “It is all very complicated, so could we sit in the kitchen, and I’ll explain?”

Seungwan’s face tells her that she’d better do just that. She sighs, rakes her hand through her hair and turns sharply to the kitchen’s door without saying a single word.

Yerim uses that time to pop into the bathroom to brush her teeth and grab normal clothes from the dryer. (Thank god they aren’t in her room, that would be so embarrassing.) At least now she is involved in all the mess wearing jeans and a t-shirt instead of Hello Kitty pajamas. Though, to be honest, her t-shirt also has a Hello Kitty picture, so not much has changed.

She has a brief second of panic, now fully realizing there’s a strange man in her bedroom, and what if he notices something embarrassing in there, but then a second wave of more urgent panic smothers that down. Because, gosh, she really needs to speak to Seungwan, who is probably still angry that Yerim didn’t talk to her about the whole being gay thing, and the whole operating room thing, and the whole Chanyeol thing, and the whole Zhang Yixing thing, and oh god, how does Yerim still has a home after this extreme amount of fuck-ups. Their relationships are too close to easily survive this much secretiveness.

She looks at herself in the mirror, goes through bullet points of her talk with Seungwan in her head (most of those bullet points are apologies), breathes and opens the door of the bathroom, more or less ready for another execution. Immediately, she hears, “And you weren’t even armed?!” by all too loud Baekhyun and, instead of going to the kitchen, rushes back to her room.

This time she is the one to shut the door to get their attention: “Holy shit, guys, can you please keep it down?! Jesus, does the whole apartment need to know you are criminals?”

Baekhyun turns to Yerim, lips twitching from holding back a smile, but then it dawns on him, and he turns back to Joy, hissing, “She knows? You told her?”

Okay, now, that is actually scary. Yerim subtly leans onto the door and contemplates her life once again.

Joy pouts guiltily, “She kinda figured it out after she stitched me?”

For a few moments Baekhyun just stares at Joy in disbelief, and Yerim thinks that she’s not the only one who has relationship problems in this flat. Baekhyun covers his eyes with his hand, slowly, as if to not let his anger loose, and Yerim notices how pretty his hands are. He stays like that for a little bit. Yerim would almost believe Baekhyun is doing some breathing exercises, if he didn’t smile so creepily.

“So let me get this straight just one more time,” Baekhyun speaks, quiet, but not really calm, and Yerim, having just made a small step into the room, steps back and holds onto the door. “You got wounded during work. You called nobody. You walked into some house and asked a random civilian to stitch you? You didn’t even call me for the whole goddamn day?!” he doesn’t shout, almost as if taking a note of what Yerim told him, but his aggressive whisper sounds angry nonetheless.

Joy immediately drops her guilty interior and pushes, annoyed, “For fuck’s sake, Baek! Stop over-dramatising this! I told you I know her from before. I needed a doctor and a place to hide! Since I don’t really trust our seonsaengnim, it wouldn’t be really smart to go to our place,” her voice softens a bit, “I lost my phone, true, but still, the first thing I did after was calling you. And also, I told you, the. Uh,” Joy casts a glance at Yerim, probably trying to choose the most neutral word for whatever she was doing that night, “the _work_ part was fine. They got me later in the morning on my way to the gym.”

Baekhyun seems to soften at that, still looking concerned. Yerim can get why.

“Though it’s adorable that you worried,” Joy chuckles as an afterthought, and Baekhyun just shrugs, as if at the loss of words.

“Go to hell, Joy,” Baekhyun says, proving Yerim’s thoughts right.

He looks at Joy for a while longer, then switches his attention to Yerim, studies her face for a second. Yerim cracks an awkward smile. Baekhyun purses his lips together in a pout and then opens his mouth, as if to ask something, but Joy interrupts him.

“We need to get going anyway. Nothing we cannot discuss in a better place. Do we have everything ready?”

Baekhyun turns away from Yerim, and she sighs in relief. Baekhyun just shrugs again, “I set the team up for the thing. They bring something, I bring you, that’s kinda the point.”

Joy seems to be content with his answer, nodding to herself. She then looks at Yerim, and it’s immediately obvious she remembers something unpleasant, frowning, “I actually might have a tail.”

“What?!” Yerim kind of starts feeling sorry for Baekhyun, as his voice sounds almost like a whine. It seems to be one long, tiring day for him. And it is just 8 o’clock in the morning.

Joy ruffles her hand through her hair, messing it up.

“Yeah, her teacher seems to know who I am apparently, and seems to know that Yerim helps me.”

“Do you have any idea how?” Baekhyun asks, pinching his nose bridge right beneath his piercing.

“Well, _Bae family_ was mentioned so I am, you know, mildly concerned.” Joy looks about the room for her stuff, and Yerim remembers with a start that she has fresh stitches on her stomach. God. Fuck. She’s a great doctor.

Baekhyun carefully massages his forehead, “Well. That’s fucked up. Do you know him? Who is he?”

“Zhang Yixing, I believe?” Yerim nods when Joy looks at her, even though it seems an unnecessary question in the first place. “A teacher at Yeri’s uni. I might know him.” Joy seems to think for a second, drumming her fingers on her chin. “His name seems familiar, but you know I dealt with all the hospital mess back then, so I know like a shit ton of Chinese-named doctors, and I am pretty sure they all know me. And he doesn’t have a picture on the University’s website, so could be anyone, really.”

Baekhyun turns back to Yerim again. Yerim doesn’t like it in the slightest, with all that’s been said. She dislikes it even harder when Baekhyun says, “So I guess the lady is riding with us,” and flashes Yerim a perfunctory grin and frowns. “This is actually pretty bad, really. We might need Joonmyun to settle this.”

Joy nods, and Yerim feels her heart falling somewhere to the stomach area (which is not anatomically correct, but sure feels like it). She doesn’t really want to go anywhere with them. Seriously, Joy was nice to her, but they are fucking geondal. They have probably killed people, and it’s good if it’s the worst thing they did to them. In what kind of life situation would it be okay to hang out with criminals at all? Yerim has got studies and this whole mess with Zhang-seonsaengnim, which might be even deeper than she wants to know. Her friendship is crumbling. She’s very possibly officially gay, now that she’s kissed a girl. Who is a criminal and has probably killed people.

Yerim is also very far from trusting Baekhyun, who seems a lot less nice than Joy. And some Joonmyun they are talking about. One of them could very well murder Yerim by the end of the day, and she’d be lucky if they don’t do anything to Seungwan or Zhang-seonsaengnim. Baekhyun smiles at Yerim wickedly, showing off the tongue piercing as she stumbles back to the door.

“Stop scaring her, seriously!” Joy makes a step towards Yerim, carefully taking her hand with her own long pretty fingers. She looks at her, leaning close, so close Yerim can make out her freckles, “Hey, honey, it’s okay. Nobody’s going to hurt you. We will have a trip, but you will stay safe in our place until we deal with the whole thing and by Monday you will be free to go to your classes, okay?”

“Who… Who is Joonmyun?” Yerim manages to ask, and Baekhyun laughs. His laugh is jarring and totally surpasses the noise limit Yerim has sorta kinda set just now.

“I’ll tell hyung that he was finally able to scare someone, sure.” He waves his hands defensively when Joy hisses at him.

She then turns back to Yerim, smiling: “He will probably make you sign a paper or two for the confidentiality of all this. Okay?”

“Not okay is not an option, right?” Yerim asks, voice shaky. She’d honestly said that mostly as a joke, but Joy still seems to consider her question for a second, and then answers.

“It is, but it will end up with you still going with us. However in that case we will most likely take Seungwan too, so she doesn’t call the police.”

It doesn’t necessarily sound like a threat, but doesn’t help Yerim calm down, either, which Joy probably notices and squeezes her hand: “Really, Yerim, I promise not to hurt you. Anyway it’s just better if you stay under our protection before it all ends, okay? I have no idea who your professor works for.” Joy’s eyes get a little sad, and after a pause she says, “I am sorry I dragged you into this.”

Refusing doesn’t seem a reasonable option, after all. Yerim wishes she started acting all scared and hesitant the very moment Chanyeol suggested that freaking bet. She could have simply studied chemistry by now.

By the way, chemistry.

Yerim takes a (hopefully) calming breath and nods. Ookay. Can I. Can I bring my textbooks?”

Joy laughs softly and swings their hands between them a little. “Seriously, you are adorable. Sure. Grab them.”

Yerim goes around her room on autopilot, hazy, and picks textbooks. If she doesn’t get kicked out of the university for stealing the equipment, she will still need to pass all the classes. If she does get kicked out of the university… well. At least it would be a good distraction for now.

She grabs her phone from where she left it last night and sees the message on the lock screen.

 **Seungwan unnie** I believe you had a legit reason for this and am still waiting for the explanations in my room

The only thing Yerim manages to do is panic before Baekhyun notices the phone and reaches out to take it. Yerim gives it to him and helplessly watches him check it and switch it off. He also looks through her textbooks carefully. He hums to himself a little and asks Joy, “Did you check her bag for bugs and shit?”

Joy nods, smiling at Yerim as if to apologize for invading her personal space. Yerim wonders again how she managed to get into this and how to get out, when Joy comes closer and puts her hands on Yerim’s shoulders. Yerim stands frozen while Joy’s hands wonder around her clothes, checking all the pockets maybe a little too carefully. In the meantime Baekhyun looks about the room and out the window.

After Joy says that everything’s clear they both follow Baekhyun out of the room quietly, putting on their shoes and leaving the flat. Even if Seungwan hears them she doesn’t come out, and Yerim is extremely grateful for that, although a little terrified at the prospects of their friendship. She’d rather tell Seungwan at least something, that she’s going out to— know Joy’s ex-boyfriend better or whatever, but that would only make Seungwan, who is still waiting for her to come groveling, angry all over.

So maybe leaving quietly is better. But not really.

The car is right outside, parked near the apartment block. Yerim doesn’t know much about cars in general, so to her the fancy black jeep with toned mirrors seems like an expensive black box. Or rather, an expensive coffin. They will just put her inside and nobody will ever find her.

Oh well. At least she won’t have to work in pediatrics?

Baekhyun takes the driver’s place, and Joy opens the back door for Yerim. Yerim expects Joy to join Baekhyun in the front seat after that, but instead Joy just just tells her to move and sits next to her. Yerim can feel Joy’s knee bumping against hers, and it is both exciting like it was yesterday, and scary like it was back there on the street where they met for the first time. Yerim exhales shakily and notices that her hands are trembling around the backpack she clutches to her chest. Too much adrenaline, and there probably won’t be any time to calm down at all during however long they’re going to hold her. She might die with her adrenaline levels too high. It’s a weird thought that leads nowhere, and it just circles around Yerim’s panicked mind for some reason.

Baekhyun gives Joy a piece of black cloth he pulled god knows from where. “Tie her eyes.”

At that Yerim feels ready to scream and jump out of the car, even if she would have to break the window first, but Joy takes her hand again, soft and reassuring.

“Oh my god, Yerim you’re really like a ghost now.” She sounds really worried, but it doesn’t help. If anything, Yerim panics even more, for herself and for Joy, by extension.

Baekhyun starts driving, turning the music — some k-pop channel — louder. Joy leans onto Yerim, pretty face without any makeup and full lips close to hers. She touches Yerim’s cheek tentatively, moves her hand down to Yerim’s neck and pulls her into a hug. Yerim is too centered around her own fear to respond, and Joy starts stroking her hair. Her movements, soft and slow, as if Yerim were a scared pet, have their effect, and after a while it gets easier for Yerim to move. She doesn’t think of anything better than to hug Joy back. Yerim still trembles but, as she relaxes, her eyes get wet, tears about to spill.

When she sobs quietly, Joy backs off to look her in the eyes. “Is this also adrenaline?”

Yerim half-sobs, half-laughs, “To some point. It is adrenaline to influence my autonomic nervous system, which affects my lacrimal system by acetylcholine.”

Joy smiles at her. “I didn’t get a word of what you were saying to me, but it sounded cool. Now I’ll tie your eyes with this, okay? We are going to our place, and it is safe for you to be there, but you already know much more than you should. Don’t worry, I’ll hold your hand or whatever, if it makes you feel better.”

Yerim nods slowly, not because she is very calm now, but just because there is nothing else she can don now. Or rather, nothing else strikes her as any sensible course of action.

Joy covers her eyes with the cloth, carefully tying it at the back of her head. Yerim can still feel her being close, but before she can ask anything or react in any way at all, Joy quickly kisses her, more of a peck than a kiss. When she leans back, Yerim doesn’t know better than to bite her lips, where the feel of Joy’s mouth is still lingering.

A bit of light seeps through the cloth, but no more than that, so Yerim just closes her eyes completely. She feels a little motion-sick, from all the nerves and now unable to see, but it’s bearable.

Then Joy’s hands lead Yerim to lie down on her lap. It does feel kind of safer, reminding her of when her family would take a trip to her grandparents, and she would lie down on her mother’s knees to sleep.

Joy continues stroking her hair, and Baekhyun makes the music quieter, as if earlier the volume was up just to give them some kind of privacy. They stay silent for some time. Yerim tries not to think of anything and just concentrates on memorizing the road, just in case she ever needs it. Somewhere at the eighth -- or maybe ninth? she is not very good at it — turn Baekhyun speaks.

“I wonder, why were you so sure it was one of our people? Maybe there was a leak in the system or whatever,” he says as the car turns left.

“You suspect our system? Are you sure you can repeat that looking Soo straight in the eyes?” Joy asks, teasing.

“You wouldn’t dare tell him about this.” Baekhyun sounds almost as scared as Yerim when she talks about Kim-seonsaengnim.

Joy laughs, short and sharp. Yerim can feel that Joy’s body beneath her is mostly relaxed, but at the same time just a bit tense, like there is this unreleased, fresh energy inside. Joy’s hands are threading through Yerim’s hair carefully, sending subtle tingling sensations down her scalp. It feels nice. Maybe they aren’t planning to murder her after all.

“Do you think I am wrong though? With seonsaengnim?” Yerim almost freaks out, thinking that Joy’s talking about Zhang-seonsaengnim, but Baekhyun is quick to reply.

“Nah, I actually suspected him for some time, was about to talk to you even, but well. Didn’t happen, I guess. Dae is talking to him now.”

“Wow, right away?” Joy barks out a surprised laugh. “Somebody is moody.”

“Moody? Fucking moody? Joy, for god damn sake, seriously, you can’t even imagine how ‘moody’ I can get when you disappear for entire day after,” Baekhyun pauses, making a deep inhale, “day after being busy.”

Yerim can feel the car turning again. She has already lost the track of time and turns. They could be anywhere in Busan, but right now the location itself might be the least of her problems (so long that it isn’t the sea’s floor, that is). And, lying like that, she finds it hard to care for anything at all. Her anxious brain helps her, supplying her with a memory of Seungwan, who is either really pissed or really worried or both right now. Yerim squeezes her hands around her backpack harder and hurriedly tunes back into Joy and Baekhyun’s conversation.

“Baek, it’s really cute that you worried. Thank you, me and my lifelong criminal experience can get me over a bunch of idiots who weren’t even able to take on a gun,” Joy sounds very much irritated by the incompetence.

“Well they wanted to be quiet?” Baekhyun suggests.

“Baekhyun, just to make sure I work with you for a reason. What would you do if you wanted to be quiet?”

Baekhyun chuckles and turns the car to the right.

“Bring a sniper in, or a silencer is always an option. Though, really, I’d go with something better than a group attack in the residential area.” Yerim cannot actually believe what they are discussing, but can’t stop paying attention to details. After the pause, Baekhyun adds, “Who the fuck does those things at residential areas?”

Anything is better than thinking of messed-up friendships, right, Yerim. Even listening to members of geondal plotting a hypothetical murder.

“Thank you!” Joy’s sarcastic voice would be a great match for Kim-seonsaengnim eyebrow raise. “So can we please establish that this was the shittiest attack plan?”

“You got hurt though, so it could have been successful, I guess.” There is a pause, then Baekhyun continues, “Okay, no it couldn’t have, sorry. Honestly, I almost hope there is more to it, considering they actually managed to get one of ours to sell us.”

Joy chuckles, and Yerim can feel her move, like she is stretching. “Fuck. That hurts.” Oh god. Right. Her stitches, Yerim should’ve checked before leaving.

“Well, at least you get one more pretty scar. Sexy.” Yerim wants to ask what on Earth is sexy about scars, but then she just remembers Joy’s body and shuts up, because she might be a pervert, but to some extent she totally gets it.

“Who are you bringing in?”

“Usual. Well, usual and our bear.” At this point Yerim is ready to believe they have an actual bear in their… headquarters or whatever.

“You got her out?” Joy sounds genuinely surprised and Baekhyun giggles.

“It’s been a long while since the last time she got out for anything but pizza delivery. We can leave her with your girl if you want.”

“My name is Yerim,” Yerim mumbles quietly, way too petulantly for the current situation, but Baekhyun seems to hear anyway.

“I am sorry Yeri-ya, I’ll call you by your name.” That so didn’t make it any better. Talking is definitely, a hundred percent a mistake.

“Nope, she is coming with us,” Joy says, back to discussing… the bear, evidently. “I am not cruel enough to leave her watching anyone. Especially when she is pissed.”

“How do you know?” Baekhyun asks with a weird fondness to his voice.

“Do you think you are the only person that knows that her favourite ongoing drama runs at ten? I am not sure she will ever forgive you forcing her to miss it.”

Baekhyun laughs again, bright and loud. If the conversation started and ended at this point Yerim could have thought it’s just a normal talk between friends, no criminals involved.

Joy continues, “I’ll leave her to Soo. He is probably best suited for babysitting among all of us.” Babysitting, huh. Maybe for them coming of age is associated with like, killing someone for the first time.

“That’s true but let’s make sure he never knows we agreed on that,” Baekhyun says, infinitely serious.

“Good point.”

Does Yerim now have to be afraid of yet another person, whoever this ‘Soo’ is? Oh well. She would’ve been afraid of them no matter what.

The car stops, and Yerim hears the driver’s safety belt being unfastened as Joy helps her sit up. “Here we are. Let me help you get out.”

Joy takes her by the elbow and helps climb out of the car. Yerim can hear somebody, probably Baekhyun, opening the door, and then they enter someplace quiet. Yerim hears another door being opened, and then Joy saying, “Be careful, stairs.”

After the stairs there is another door. After they pass it, Joy finally takes the cloth covering Yerim’s eyes off. Yerim doesn’t open them right away, afraid that the light will be too bright, but it isn’t. The lights are soft, yellow, almost orange and somehow intimate.

She takes off her shoes, following Baekhyun and Joy, and looks around the flat. It looks cosy and clean — brick walls not covered with anything, huge dark sofa with a couple of matching chairs. A bookshelf of dark wood by one of the walls. Everything seems fancy — you wouldn’t see this kind of furniture in the student’s house. Only now Yerim notices that there are no windows, only the lamps of different kinds, a couple minimalistic standard-lamps, one by the sofa, the other in the corner; chandeliers, as well. There are a few doors down the hall on the left.

“Welcome to the house,” Baekhyun grins at her and bows, playfully. Yerim automatically bows back, feeling like a complete idiot. Baekhyun actually doesn’t seem as scary as he was in her house, probably because he isn’t mad anymore. Maybe he is also home, since he jumps on the sofa and stretches like a cat.

“Do you want anything?” Joy asks from a different room, maybe kitchen. Yerim doesn’t understand Joy’s asking her until she prompts, “Yeri-ya?”

“Water maybe?” Yerim isn’t really hungry, though she didn’t eat this morning. Stress never actually encouraged her to eat. If anything, food could only make it worse.

Joy comes back with a glass and hands it to Yerim. Their fingers touch, and Yerim thinks again that Joy keeps them a little longer than necessary, just like yesterday. Maybe it’s because Yerim’s seeing things she wants to be true. She doesn’t focus on this thought.

“Are you sure you are not hungry though?” Joy sounds concerned, but before Yerim can even think about the answer, he hears Baekhyun whining from a coach.

“Even if she was, what’s the point? There is literally nothing in here,” he complains.

Joy rolls her eyes: “Baek, get your shit together, seriously!”

“No~” His voice gets so childish that Yerim can’t hold back a laugh.

Joy watches them both almost fondly and picks up the phone, opening the door and going out again. “I’ll call Dae for food.”

The door clicking shut kickstarts Yerim’s worries. Without Joy she suddenly doesn’t know where to put herself. Baekhyun lies on the couch, eyes closed. Yerim can’t make herself sit down, so she walks around the room before finally stopping in front of the bookshelf to make it look like she is busy with something. But before she can decipher any of the book titles, Baekhyun speaks.

“You don’t have to be skittish around me, you know,” he says. When Yerim turns around he’s opened one eye and looks at her lazily. “Contrary to a popular belief I don’t bite unless we have something more established between us than you and I have right now.” He then seems to think about it, opening both of his eyes and even lifting his head a little. “Well only if you asked me? But no, Joy would rip my dick off with her bare hands then.”

Yerim can’t help but snort. Baekhyun readily smiles back so bright as if he’s actually happy he made her react.

“Thanks but no thanks,” Yerim answers much easier than before, sitting down in one of the chairs with a randomly picked book in case there will be awkward silence and she’ll have to pretend it’s not awkward. Only then she thinks that she should have probably asked before doing so, but instead of riding a self-reflection train, she looks back at Baekhyun, who pouts at her. Is it the thing that mafia members do nowadays? What’s next, he’s going to do aegyo, too?

“That’s what they always tell me,” he informs her gravely. “Which is plain stupid in my opinion, because how can you turn down a bite from these teeth?” He opens his mouth and gestures wildly at it. Yerim full on laughs at it. “What? Am I wrong? This is the thing I go by in life; try it before you deny it!”

Something about Baekhyun, possibly the amount of words he has in stock and his bright excited energy, has Yerim relaxed enough to ask, “Is that how you ended up in geondal?”

Because Yerim is a very smooth conversationalist. The smoothest. So much for that ice-breaking.

Baekhyun looks at her with wild eyes and a half-smile on his face, and then barks out a laugh so loud that something in the room actually rings from it.

“Oh boy,” he wails through laughter and wipes fake tears from under his eyes. “You would be a great addition to the team, if you ask me. Well, if anyone here actually cared enough for my opinion to ask me, but hey, no pressure. I’ll make sure to mention your person next time around.”

“And ruin my life completely like it’s not in pieces now,” Yerim finishes sarcastically, still smiling. It’s mostly a joke. Hopefully.

“Oh come on, nothing is in pieces until you’re in pieces,” Baekhyun says, waving his hand around. “And like, you would never be in pieces because you’re a surgeon yourself and therefore probably have some surgeon friends, too.”

“Thanks, that is not reassuring in the slightest,” Yerim says, putting a hand on her chest. Baekhyun smiles back at her, this bit softer. Possibly because it was indeed reassuring in a weird twisted way. But then, again, to all of the ice-breaking conversation: “Did that help your surgeon though?”

Baekhyun freezes momentarily, but then relaxes, smiling. “The best advice I can give you for your bright start as a delinquent, is if you see a woman in geondal, never in the world piss her off.”

“Is it a belief?” Yerim asks. Baekhyun’s way of speaking makes it hard to worry about the actual meaning behind his words.

Baekhyun looks at her pointedly.

“These, my dear, are years of personal experience,” Baekhyun’s smile shines. “Years of experience pissing Joy off and still being alive. But I am very special.” Yerim can’t hold back a smile.

This is exactly when Joy returns, catching both Baekhyun and Yerim with stupid smiles on their faces. She looks at them quickly and says, all business, “They’ll be here soon, so we need to be ready to set off. And, Baek, stand up, you know that this couch is not for you.”

Baekhyun whines, but sits up anyway and moves to the corner of the sofa reluctantly. Joy hums with content and turns to Yerim, smiling. Her smile is, as always, beautiful and a little stupid, but distant, her eyes hard.

“Look, we can’t have you listening in, so I will just leave you in a different room. When we go out, Soo will open the door and stay with you, okay?” She explains it calmly and patiently, smiling a little more real in the end.

Yerim nods, and Joy shows her the direction, leading Yerim to a different room, bedroom probably, and closing the door behind them.

The bedroom is pretty similar to the guest room, but with a wardrobe instead of the bookshelf, a big mirror and a huge bed covered by the dark blue sheets. Yerim looks at herself in the mirror and immediately feels self-conscious, especially next to Joy. No makeup, a childish t-shirt with a Hello Kitty pattern. Her hair is a mess and she can’t even remember if she brushed it today. It probably wouldn’t seem so bad if it didn’t make such a contrast with Joy and her all-too-pretty everything. Joy meets her eyes in the mirror, and Yerim looks away quickly, observing her reflected feet instead.

Joy steps closer, and suddenly Yerim feels her tucking her hair behind her ear. When she looks up, Joy carefully studies her reflection.

“Soo will just bring you home when it’s all over, so don’t worry,” she says, just as steady. Her eyes are so heavy.

Yerim, however, already stopped worrying much about herself by this point, since home feels like a different planet after this car ride and a pleasant chat with a criminal.

“Will you be okay?” It’s funny how the only thing that now bothers her is the whole thing Joy and others whom she mentioned are going to do. Yerim realizes, belatedly, that her words sound a little too worried, so she frowns into the mirror and adds, “make sure you don’t need me to stitch you this time.”

Yerim looks at Joy and sees her smiling, playful and charming, but also soft.

How does Joy manage that, being a Wonder woman, and a criminal, a person who scares guys at night and someone with such a kind smile.

“Well I can never promise you anything, but I might know one thing that will raise my chances,” light crinkle in her pretty smiling eyes.

“What’s that?” Yerim starts to blush before Joy even answers, her heart jumping in her chest again from Joy being so close.

“A kiss from a pretty girl,” Joy winks at her, and Yerim’s cheeks burn. She doesn’t think much, just nods and closes her eyes, but Joy doesn’t kiss her yet, just leans close and murmurs into her ear: “Are you sure that’s okay? You can say no.”

But Yerim doesn’t need to think twice. She does want a kiss, and probably more. And she is, probably, gay, and probably insane, but when Joy stands so close to her that she can feel her body heat it doesn’t really matter. Nothing really matters. Yerim takes Joy’s hand and puts it on her waist, it squeezing her skin through her t-shirt immediately.

“I don’t know anything about this and I am probably horrible at it,” she says hoping it sounds more like a warning than like self-deprecation.

Joy leans closer, kissing her neck, down from her jaw to where the collar of the t-shirt starts, and Yerim trembles again.

“Then only practise will help.” Yerim wants to laugh at how blatantly flirty Joy sounds, but at the same time it’s working on her like magic, which isn’t funny at all.

This time Joy doesn’t play nice or soft. She slips her hand in Yerim’s hair, holding her in place, and pushes their lips together, slipping her tongue in. Yerim grabs onto Joy’s t-shirt, squeezing the fabric in her right hand. She remembers about the cut (is momentarily overcome with guilt for being a shit of a doctor) and places her left hand on Joy’s neck. She can feel Joy’s blood rushing beneath the gentle skin there.

Joy takes over the kiss and everything else, the thoughts and doubts being knocked out of Yerim’s head when she feels Joy tugging her t-shirt up. She pulls it out of her jeans where it’s tucked in and runs her palm over the revealed skin of Yerim’s stomach. It feels too overwhelming and intense already, but Yerim doesn’t want to let go, so she responds to the kiss eagerly, and Joy hums lowly into her mouth. Yerim realizes suddenly that she wants more than that, some questionable content images flashing through her mind.

Joy breaks the kiss and whispers: “You can’t even imagine how hot you looked with that blindfold on.”

Joy looks flustered when Yerim leans away a little to look at her, and then she dips down, kissing the skin below Yerim’s ear and down her chin, and the last drops of Yerim’s self-consciousness seep away slowly under the weight of Joy’s want.

Yerim didn’t really enjoy the sex she had with her boyfriend. It wasn’t that she didn’t want it. She felt something like arousal when they made out, but he didn’t have any experience also, so the sex they had was clumsy, and then Yerim had to freak out about being pregnant for the whole time before her period started. The next times she found herself trying to get distracted and solving school tests in her head just to ignore what was happening, because it didn’t feel anything but weird. Her ex also didn’t seem to enjoy that much, so they broke up.

With Joy it is different. She kisses and leads differently, like she knows exactly what she is doing, what she wants, what Yerim wants. It is a lot easier to relax when you don’t need to try figuring things out. Joy also, for some reason, seems to like her, even though Yerim cannot fathom why. But it helps. She likes her. She wants her.

Joy’s hand goes up, lightly touching the skin below Yerim’s bra and then behind it, tugging on the clip. Yerim lets out an embarrassing sound resembling a hiccup and freezes, still clutching on Joy’s shirt helplessly. Joy breaks a kiss but doesn’t back off, just trailing Yerim’s cheek with her lips, kissing and sucking on her earlobe, breath hot.

“Too much?” she asks, low and hoarse.

Yerim relaxes again at the question. It makes a difference, because Joy cares and considers Yerim’s feelings, like she isn’t just taking, like she enjoys Yerim enjoying this. Yerim turns to Joy, silent, and takes her in for a moment. Red, chapped lips, even puffier now from kissing, blush high on her cheeks, intense eyes carefully watching Yerim.

Yerim whispers a quiet, “No,” and then, when Joy backs away, loosening her hold on Yerim’s back, has to awkwardly explain that no, it isn’t too much, it is in fact just fine. Joy huffs out a laugh, looking at Yerim with sparkly eyes and breathing heavy. At that Yerim kisses Joy herself, feeling her hands slipping under her t-shirt again and unclasping her bra, and then pushing her to the wall. Joy’s lips curl when Yerim whimpers quietly, muffled by the kiss.

It is weird how strong Joy is, her fingers, her arms, her wide shoulders. And yet it is very feminine — the outline of Joy’s chest under her t-shirt, and the shape of her body, the softness of her lips.

Joy tugs on Yerim’s hair making her lean her head against the wall, opening her neck and biting on it while her hand gets under the bra, cupping Yerim’s right breast and touching her nipple with her thumb. Yerim can’t hold back the moan. She bangs her head on the wall too hard, and it sobers her up, but not for long. She imagines Joy naked, next to her, licking the tender skin with her tongue and sucking on it, biting, and moans again, the sound stolen by Joy’s mouth.

There’s the knock on the door.

“Joy, I can guess you are busy, but we do need to get going, and everyone is already here, so could you maybe join us?” Yerim never hated Baekhyun more during this one and only day they know each other. Baekhyun sounds like he already knows it and enjoys the fact to the fullest.

Joy chuckles, slowly, reluctantly detaching herself from Yerim. She looks even prettier like this, flushed cheeks and bright, sincere smile.

“Co~ming,” she sing-songs to the door and looks back at Yerim, “Sorry about that.”

“N-no. It’s fine, I get it,” Yerim stutters out, torn between wanting to fix her hair, clasp her bra, do something that’ll make her look presentable again and wanting to touch Joy forever, preferably naked. She still cannot find her breath and is still too aroused to think straight (will she ever be able to think straight in her life), so she leans closer to Joy and asks quietly: “Will I see you again?”

Joy blinks, looking hesitant for a second. “You sure you want to?”

Yerim should probably know better, but she just squeezes her hand slightly on the back of Joy’s neck and nods.

Joy smiles at her, and it’s puzzling to Yerim how sincere her smile is, gummy and bright, so different from the way she smiled just a few minutes ago. Then Joy kisses her again, and Yerim is shaking just from that. Gosh, she hates Baekhyun.

Joy breaks the kiss, her smile suddenly smug, and runs her fingers down Yerim’s stomach and lower, to the button of her jeans, opening them and then looking straight into Yerim’s eyes.

“I am kinda sure you know how to proceed yourself.”

Yerim blushes at that, both wanting to die and to laugh and something else. How can Joy talk about those things with a straight face. “Um. Not really.”

Joy’s lips tremble , but she keeps her face and continues talking, leaning in slyly, “Well, you take your hand...”

Yerim covers Joy’s mouth with her hand, whining, “I KNOW how masturbation works, Joy. I just, usually, well. Don’t.”

Joy looks at her very seriously, wrapping her fingers around Yerim’s wrist and pulling her hand away from her mouth, but not far, so she can lick the cleft between her middle and ring finger. Yerim shivers, and Joy speaks again.

“I am serious though, Yeri-ya. I’ll be thinking about that,” Joy licks her lips and Yerim’s everything is suddenly fixated on this movement. “You, taking of your t-shirt and bra, lying down on that bed and touching yourself, thinking of how I would be doing that. Would you do that for me?”

Yerim doesn’t even fully understand what she nods to, Joy being impossible to refuse. This feels almost as intimate as it ever got between her and anyone else, a bit too intense for the second day of knowing each other, but just a bit. Yerim can totally live with this bit.

Joy smiles again, whispering, “Good,” and quickly kisses Yerim on the lips again, a short but sweet thing. She opens the door and slips out of the room, leaving Yerim alone, with her clothes being a mess, and also being helplessly aroused.

Yerim can hear the door being locked from the outside. Gosh, she hates her life, but also can’t get Joy’s words out of her head. And anyway, she does think how Joy would be touching her — as if she could stop thinking that now. She detaches herself from the wall and glances at herself in the mirror. She looks just the way she feels — absolutely fucked, a red trail of bites down her neck, lips red and swollen, jeans open. She is a criminal detained by criminals, and totally gay, and a shitty friend, so really, some sex fantasies cannot make this day any worse.

“Why bother,” she mumbles to her reflection and takes her t-shirt off.

 

***

 

Yerim wakes up and feels a bit lost at first — the bed and bedsheets feeling strange beneath her hands, and everything else being unfamiliar, as well. Then she tries to find her phone but remembers that Baekhyun took it away. With the picture of Baekhyun in her head everything more or less comes back to places, and she remembers where she is and why, and that might have been her last nap ever. Yerim sits up, feeling more on edge now, without Joy.

The lights in the room are switched off. Yerim doesn’t remember doing that and gets ready to freak out, but notices that there is a line of light from the door, which is open. God. It was a great idea to wear the t-shirt back on.

Yerim considers her options — is it better to just stay in the room or try to go out? Joy mentioned that they will leave a guy here, with her. Maybe he’s like Baekhyun.

Yerim really hopes he is not, because two Baekhyuns for one day will definitely be too much. She isn’t sure if one Baekhyun alone isn’t too much, seriously.

Her stomach rumbles and she realizes she didn’t have anything to eat since her awkward talk with Seungwan yesterday. Or is it still today? Is Seungwan okay, or is she terribly mad or worried, is she looking for her, could she possibly reach the police— The thoughts make Yerim want to puke, but she tries to focus on something else. She just sits for a little bit, listening attentively to what could be coming from other rooms, but nothing catches her ear. She decides to come out, after all, hoping to at least find some food, maybe, and slides off the bed.

When she opens the door and looks around she immediately notices the guy, like he chose a place to sit exactly so she can see him. Yerim is grateful for that.

The guy doesn’t look anything like Baekhyun, almost opposite. Short hair, like he shaved a couple of months ago, and it’s growing back. He isn’t wearing any makeup (which might be unusual for that particular criminal gang), just round glasses. The gray sweatshirt and simple dark-blue jeans do look good on him, but they are definitely worn mostly for being comfortable than to impress anyone.

He is reading a book but probably hears Yerim opening the door and puts it down, smiling at her, cautious but soft.

That reminds Yerim of Joy’s soft lips, and at that thought Yerim involuntarily blushes. But only a little.

“H-hi, you must be. Um, Soo-ssi? I am sorry I do not actually know your full name,” Yerim bows clumsily. God, Yerim you could have just ask him about it first, no need to make everything extra awkward.

The man doesn’t seem bothered, he just snorts softly and stands up, walking closer to Yerim.

“Kyungsoo. And you are Kim Yerim-ssi, I should suppose?” He also bows.

“Yup, yes, that’s me,” Yerim answers, not knowing where to put her hands.

They both go silent for a moment. Suddenly Yerim’s stomach rumbles, making the silence even less comfortable, but Kyungsoo speaks, absolutely void of any kind of mockery.

“You must be hungry? Joy mentioned you haven’t eaten, so she saved some pizza for you. It’s in the fridge. There is also a coffee machine and some tea in the cupboard.”

“Is it okay if I use the kitchen?”

Kyungsoo seems surprised for a moment, blinking down at her — he is not much taller than Joy. “Why not? I mean, sure. This place isn’t anyone’s, we just keep it for days like this. It’s common.”

“Are you not afraid of me running away?” It is not like Yerim is going to, obviously, but she still wants to ask.

Kyungsoo shrugs, carefully taking his glasses off and folding them in his hand.

“Not really. Can you squeeze through walls or something?” The funniest thing is how he says that with a completely straight face, one brow slightly raised, like he would be surprised if she said yes, but not really.

Yerim can’t stop comparing him with Joy and Baekhyun (maybe because they’re the only criminals she knows), and it doesn’t make much sense so far. Kyungsoo could have as well been a student. Baekhyun does look like a criminal, but Joy doesn’t, not really. Though being so pretty could be considered a crime too.

Yerim thanks Kyungsoo, unsure for what exactly, and walks to the kitchen. Same brick walls, steel and white cupboards. It’s as simple and clean as the whole apartment, without any type of decoration or a hint of personal presence. It might be a little larger than the kitchen in Seungwan and Yerim’s apartment, but it seems much more spacious. The fridge, for one, is much bigger than the one back in Yerim’s flat.

Inside is the full box of miscellaneous pizza pieces — it seems that Joy saved a couple of each kind. Yerim takes it out. She eats the first two pieces cold, uncaring for how it looks, but then notices a microwave and tries searching for a plate.

“In the second drawer,” Kyungsoo says, and Yerim jumps, as if he weren’t in this exact apartment just a couple minutes ago.

“Thanks. I, um. Had a long day,” Yerim says, opening the said drawer and picking out the first plate she sees. The plates are all different, various colours and sizes, not even two from the same set. It’s so clashing with perfectly furnished and styled apartment. It brings this little bit of life to it.

“Spending one day with those two can count for a month of your life,” Kyungsoo smiles suddenly, soft and kind, full mouth shaped like— like a heart, god, is there really not one person with just average looks in here. “Thank you for helping Joy out.”

Yerim puts the pizza in the microwave. These couple of days can count for the entire 23 years of her life, really. Even a brief nap couldn’t help her really settle things down in her head. How is she going to go back to the university? How she is going to talk to Seungwan? Gosh, is she even making it out of here alive? Joy promised that nobody’s gonna hurt her, but as much as Yerim likes Joy (and that’s a lot) can she really trust her? She should probably just eat and never think about that again.

Yerim notices that there is a rude and awkward silence and answers hurriedly, “That's nothing. It’s fine, I didn’t do much as a doctor.”

The microwave rings.

“A lot for a human though. I mean, if I were just a random guy I would call the police, or an ambulance. You didn’t.” Kyungsoo’s voice isn’t emotional at all. Like he isn’t trying to persuade Yerim or to argue, just merely announces a fact.

“You mean a lot of illegal for a human? Helping criminals and so on,” Yerim snorts and then realizes that her tone was a lot harsher than she wanted it to be. Yerim doesn’t actually regret helping Joy. It felt right back then, feels right now, it’s just, “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I don’t know anything about you.”

Kyungsoo chuckles and almost laughs, not sounding offended at all, just amused, “You are locked in a criminal hideout against your will with a criminal, and you are sorry for calling him a criminal? It’s fine, really. We are criminals. And your pizza is getting cold.”

Kyungsoo goes back to the main room, taking one of the chairs instead of the sofa this time, while Yerim eats and looks around the apartment a little closer. She thinks she kind of knows why Kyungsoo is so calm about her wangering here on herself — there is no way out except for the front door. Even if there is, she will probably not find it.

After finishing the pizza she makes herself some tea. Before Yerim goes back she thinks for a bit and makes another cup for Kyungsoo.

“You did not poison that, right?” He looks at her a bit hesitant, and Yerim only now thinks that, all things considered, she does have some sedatives back in her bag since yesterday, but she didn’t even think about it. Kim Yerim, you are the stupidest person ever. Not like there would be any point in sedating Kyungsoo but you could’ve at least entertained the idea.

“You can pick up any cup,” she shrugs, and after considering his options for a second, Kyungsoo picks one of the cups.

“Thank you.”

They pass some time quietly. Kyungsoo reads his book, Yerim studies the materials for the lectures she missed and gets completely lost in the process. She doesn't even know how long it has been when she finishes the evaluation test for one of the chapters. She looks up at Kyungsoo — he is still reading.

“What time is it?” Kyungsoo raises his head, almost surprised at someone’s presence. He blinks but then seems to be back to the real world and looks on his watch.

“A quarter past five. You slept till two.”

“Gosh, that’s was one long nap,” Yerim blurts out, and Kyungsoo chuckles quietly. “When did they leave?”

Kyungsoo thinks for a second, counting, “Maybe at twelve or so?”

“Do you think they will be back soon?” Does he think she can go back soon? Today? At some point of her life?

Kyungsoo shrugs. “I don’t know. If everything went fine, they should have been done an hour ago, but nothing ever goes fine, so I have no idea.”

He tries to go back to reading, and Yerim really tries to keep it to herself, but she feels itchy and worried, so she can’t hold back: “An hour?! That’s a lot.”

“Are you worried about them?” Kyungsoo looks at her, his gaze amused (or not; it’s extremely hard with Kyungsoo) above the book.

Yerim blushes. Why does she even care? Joy is just a random girl she met twice in her life. And made out twice in her life. And Yerim just likes her a lot and doesn’t want her to be hurt again. “Aren’t you?”

The look Kyungsoo gives her is almost blank. Almost, because Yerim thinks that she knows that expression, from working with her patients. Or rather, from looking at Zhang Yixing working with them. Some people make that face, when seonsaengnim’s questions are more personal than a patient wants them to be.

Yerim wants to apologize immediately, she shouldn’t have intruded; he’s a guy who’s holding her hostage, his feelings are none of her business, should not even be the thing that bothers her. Kyungsoo, however, smiles — it’s so sudden with him, his face softening from this non-expression he had.

“I do worry, but they are gonna be fine,” he says, warm, voice suddenly filled with emotion. “Those four together can get out of pretty much anything.”

They stay silent for a moment, Yerim taking some time to process the mixed emotions and pretty much everything happening (also trying not to forget these chemical formulae which might or might not be useful for her in the near future). Why are simple moral judgments that difficult when she needs them most.

The silence is broken by a phone call. Kyungsoo takes the phone out of his pocket and picks up.

“You’re late.” It’s hard to believe his voice was soft a second ago. Now he sounds almost like an angry parent scolding a bunch of children.

Yerim can hear someone whining loudly from the speakers and figures out it is Baekhyun. She feels something like a relief that he is alive, but doesn’t really want to think about what any of that means.

“Cut it, Baek. How was it?” Kyungsoo walks to the kitchen with the phone, probably afraid that Yerim will listen in, so she doesn’t go after him, though the only thing bothering her is Joy.

Kyungsoo will probably be back just a couple of minutes later, but Yerim feels too jittery to just sit there, so she packs her books ready to go back home. Or, optionally, to die. It is still very much a possibility.

When Kyungsoo is back, he sits next to her on the couch and looks at her carefully, like they are advised to do when bringing news to a patient and relatives. Yerim can’t stand the tension, so she just blurts out: “Is Joy okay?”

Kyungsoo chuckles, and the tension is broken. “I’ll tell her you worried. She is fine, not a scratch. I mean, except the one Joy already had.”

Yerim feels relief washing over her. She really didn’t even realize she was so worried about Joy until she doesn’t have to anymore. It’s not like Joy should matter so much in her life. Maybe she does.

“However,” Kyungsoo speaks again, “the thing didn’t do as smooth as it should have — obviously — and a lot of our people got under fire and into the fight. Including Baekhyun. A couple of them are seriously injured and taken to a hospital, but transferring there many people at once isn’t the best idea.”

Kyungsoo looks at her, like he is waiting for an answer, even though there were no questions asked, and Yerim is not even sure why he teaches her the basics of criminal business.

“I see? Why are you even telling me this? I mean, Joy and Baekhyun-ssi didn’t seem to be excited about me knowing any details.”

Kyungsoo frowns. It seems that he isn’t the one responsible for smooth communication in the team. Oh yeah, sure, they have Baekhyun for that. Yerim is not the one to talk though; if anything, she feels a little less pressured talking to someone who is, just like her, not perfect at talking.

“Usually we don’t bring people with minor injuries to the hospital, because we have a doctor in the team. Or rather, we had one.”

Yerim’s willpower is enough not to ask what happened to the guy. Never piss off women in geondal, just like Baekhyun said.

“So, you see. Here we have about ten people with light injuries, and we do have a surgery room, but we kind of need a surgeon for the evening.”

Yerim feels like Kyungsoo’s words start to make sense in her head. A convoluted sort of sense. It would’ve been better if they didn’t.

“Wait. Wait, what? Like, you want me to go with you and help a bunch of criminals after some shit they did?” She is so shocked she forgets to filter her words at all.

Kyungsoo frown gets deeper, and Yerim immediately regrets the things she just said. “You can say no, but we would appreciate if you did take up an offer. We are not at our best position right now, and they still need medical help. And, well. Technically you are already here for exactly that. Helping Joy after some shit.”

No way, Kim Yerim. No fucking way, you are in the deepest shit you’ve ever been to, no way you are getting deeper.

“You do know I am like, a fourth grade student and that the first alive human I actually stitched was Joy?” Yerim checks in, just in case it changes anything.

Kyungsoo shrugs: “I wouldn’t ask if you weren’t our best option, honestly.”

Yerim leans against the back of the sofa and presses her palms to her eyes. It feels like a whirlpool, and every turn brings her deeper and deeper underwater.

Once, when she was a kid, her father had a patient who worked as a professional diver. He told her, that if you get in a whirlpool, it is unlikely you will ever get out alive. But you need to behave at your very best till the very last moment, as professional as you can: breathe, never panic, wait, keep your mind clear. There aren’t many chances that you will get out, but these little things give you at least some hope. Or you die professional. Better die professional than die panicked.

If she gets out of this, at least she gets some unforgettable practice.

When she opens her eyes, Kyungsoo just waits for her answer patiently, probably thinking that she is too scared to say yes. Which is, to some extent, true.

“Okay. Let’s go,” she says, with scratchy voice. Maybe she’s too scared to say no, too.

Kyungsoo seems surprised, but then nods, “Pick up your stuff, I’ll wait for you here.”

Yerim just lifts her bag and shows it to Kyungsoo. He huffs dryly and nods, messaging someone.

The black cloth that was used to cover Yerim’s eyes hangs next to her jacket. Before Kyungsoo can say something, Yerim puts the jacket on and ties the cloth around her head making sure she doesn’t see anything.

“Ready?”

Yerim doesn’t think she will ever be ready for any of this but says yes anyway. Kyungsoo takes her by her elbow and carefully leads Yerim outside, the same way they came but backwards. The door closes behind them, then upstairs, another door, a couple of steps, then a door again.

The spring evening is suddenly cold. The wind blows past, and Yerim can smell a scent of plum blossoms, her senses much clearer now, when she cannot see. It calms her down a bit, as if he determination she feels helps her pull herself together.

Kyungsoo assists her with getting in the car, in the backseat again so that no-one would notice her. It smells and feels the same to the one they used earlier.

“Don’t forget the safety belt,” Kyungsoo says, his own belt clicking in the front. Yerim follows him, fumbling a little and hitting the window blindly a couple of times.

Well, it seems like they’ll get there following the traffic regulations. Good to know.

The car starts, and Yerim relaxes into the seat, trying to remember everything they taught her about operating people.

Kyungsoo, as it’s already obvious, isn’t the most conversational person Yerim had ever met, so their ride goes in silence. Yerim is grateful for this, since now she can calm herself down by going through the medical routine in her head.

Their trip isn’t that long, maybe fifteen minutes or so, and the traffic doesn’t seem to be a problem with how steady the car goes. Once, after one especially sharp turn Kyungsoo breaks the silence.

“Are you okay?” he asks, to which Yerim just hums affirmatively, listing all probable side effects of the lidocaine in her head, just in case any of her soon-to-be patients don’t know about their allergies.

When they arrive, Kyungsoo helps her get out of the car, taking off the blindfold.

“It would be weird if I was just dragging you across the street like this,” he says seriously, and Yerim laughs for some reason, like she is surprised those things actually bother anyone.

Yerim doesn’t recognize their surroundings. They are in a vast car park next to a two-storied house. It seems pretty old, an odd yellowish-pink colour, with the bright blue roof. All of it helps Yerim guess they are somewhere in the old town. Cars parked near the house also seem old; so old, in fact, that they probably can’t be used for actual, you know, driving.

Kyungsoo knocks on the door, and it opens immediately, revealing a person behind, who does in fact finally look like a gang member, at least because he is older and sufficiently bigger than everyone Yerim has met so far. He and Kyungsoo bow to each other politely, and then the man lets both Kyungsoo and Yerim into the house without even once looking at Yerim.

They take off their shoes, leaving them by the entrance where there is already far too many. Kyungsoo leads Yerim deeper into the house. They enter a room which seems to be a kitchen unified with a living room. There is a girl in the middle, waving a huge gun in the face of a man.

“Seulgi-ssi,” the man tries, raising empty hands, voice bordering on calm and apologetic, but the girl doesn’t let him finish.

“Seulgi-ssi what?! I am seriously going to kill you with this goddamn gun!”

Yerim edges to the corner of the room, but then notices a woman sitting there in a chair eyeing her carefully. Her leg seems to be wounded, and she presses a clean cloth to it with one hand while reaching for something behind the chair with another. Yerim decides to stay where she stands and not move at all.

“But it doesn’t wo—” The girl smiles a bit wickedly, and the man shuts his mouth promptly. Yerim can’t tear her eyes away from the girl’s tiny hand confidently holding on the gun.

“I can always repeatedly hit you with it,” she says and steps forward as if to fulfill her threat.

Kyungsoo makes a quiet distressed sound and walks towards the girl.

“Seulgi, stop,” he reaches for the gun but the girl pull her hand away quickly.

“Soo, he did that again! For the third time already!” Seulgi pouts, clutching the gun close to her chest as Kyungsoo looks at her with that unamused expression he has.

“I know, he is a horrible person, and you are amazing, and your guns are amazing. So please give me this, I know you can fix it later,” he says gently, and Seulgi’s anger seems to dissipate at it. She still pouts and frowns pointedly at the man, but hands the gun to Kyungsoo. The man looks at Kyungsoo with eyes extremely grateful.

“Finally! Took you long enough,” Baekhyun proclaims, making a dramatic entrance with arms wide spread and smiling all too excited. Oddly enough, seeing Baekhyun once again calms Yerim down a little, since all the unfamiliar faces and guns lying around the room started making her really nervous. “I am dying here!”

Kyungsoo and Seulgi both roll their eyes. “Baekhyun, you are not. Stop whining, for god’s sake.”

Kyungsoo glances at Yerim briefly, as if apologetic for how unorganized whatever they have here is, and turns back to Baekhyun. “Where are the others?”

Right, Kyungsoo was talking about ten or so people injured, but there aren’t many in the room. Except for the woman, Yerim only spots two more men sitting on the sofa a little to the side of the table with a massive collection of guns. Yerim kind of remembers Kyungsoo saying Baekhyun was injured too.

“Joy went out for food and extra medications, in case we are out of something,” Baekhyun says, waving his hand around to apparently show where exactly Joy went. He doesn’t seem injured at first sight. “The rest are already downstairs.”

“Where do I work?” Yerim asks tentatively and shrinks on herself when people turn in her direction. But well. They promised a normal surgery room. Not that Yerim would mind too much, after she stitched Joy on her bedroom floor.

Kyungsoo nods and gestures for her to follow him, which she does. They go into the hall and then downstairs. The basement turns out to be very spacious, a couple of chairs by the wall like in a hospital waiting room. A waiting room where patients are already halfway into cleaning the wounds themselves.

None of the people here are familiar to Yerim, but they all are definitely conscious and even able to logically proceed with their traumas. And that eases Yerim’s heart a little, relieved that she doesn’t need to save anyone from the death’s door. No-one looks very interested in her, mostly just sparing her a glance and going back to what they were doing.

Kyungsoo leads her through a door to the next room which actually does look like a surgery. Well, in ideal world it would have been better, and Yerim would never perform anything serious there, but it is quiet enough and well-equipped for simple operations (or the ones she’s actually qualified enough to carry out), a good supply of rubbing alcohol and, in fact, a whole cupboard filled with medicines. The first thing Yerim checks is lidocaine, and there’s plenty of it, too, so her life doesn’t seem as horrible as before. At least this time she doesn’t need to steal the medications and instruments.

 

After Yerim puts on a robe, cleans her hands and unpacks a pair of gloves, the first patient she’s got is Baekhyun. The wound on his arm doesn’t look horrible, but also isn’t as perfect as the one Joy had, and its condition is worse now that Baekhyun waved his arm around like nothing happened. It’s clearly difficult for him to sit still even now, so Yerim spends more time cleaning and stitching the wound. Yerim notices the tattoo on Baekhyun’s shoulder, as well; the exact same Joy has.

There is a stupid thought in the back of her head, that even though these are just two identical tattoos, it’s actually one and the same dragon depicted on them. As if it’s a real existing dragon and the tattoos are his pictures. God. Yerim has to sleep for a couple days in a row after all is done. If she actually manages out alive, that is.

Kyungsoo is an immeasurable help. Having let himself in, he distracts Baekhyun and reminds him to sit calmly, as the latter whines and complains. Despite being the worst patient anyone could have, loud and joking and fucking moving constantly, Baekhyun is indeed much calmer than he was in Yerim’s apartment in the morning.

Kyungsoo might not be responsible for speaking here, but balancing out those weirdos seems to be his speciality. Even Yerim feels kinda calmer when he is around. She also has to hold back laughter when Baekhyun asks Kyungsoo to hold his hand, the same way Joy did.

Joy walks into the surgery when Yerim is almost finished with the second patient, the woman from upstairs, with a pretty terrible-looking and still bleeding wound across her leg. Luckily, Kyungsoo didn’t lie about there not being any gunshots or bullets at all, but deep ugly cuts require a lot of effort, still.

Joy waits for a while as Yerim finishes, and the woman leaves with help from her colleagues. Yerim removes the gloves and cleans her hands again, and the place a little, too.

“Here,” Joy hands Yerim a McDonalds paper bag and a can of coffee once she’s disposed the gloves and cleaned her hands and the table once again, “figured you might need it.”

Yerim looks at the door helplessly.

“But the people...” She is hungry, but she probably should just continue working. The people waiting are probably both hungry and in pain.

“Will wait for you like ten minutes while you eat. Nobody’s dying, seriously,” Joy says, heaving herself on the operating table.

It still amazes Yerim how all that is not a big deal to Joy. She also silently hopes none of her teachers ever know that she is eating fast food in the surgery room, sitting on the operating table.

“How was— everything?” Yerim asks, carefully unwrapping a cheeseburger.

Joy looks tired. Still pretty, of course, but worn off, her clothes dusty and hair pulled up in a ponytail, even though Yerim remembers it being loose and combed in the morning. She wonders if Joy used her hairbrush, as Joy just shrugs.

“Somehow. But since you’re here you can guess things got messy. We are fine, more or less, but I hate working dirty.” Her voice sounds small and frustrated. “It’s also the guy, whose surgery room you’re using. It was. It wasn’t nice.”

“Were you close to each other?” Yerim feels weird about everything she sees here, not quite able to figure these relationships out. It seems like work, or like it should be work, but there’s also more to it. There is some weird structure to it, and Yerim is getting curious about it, even though she tries not to be. She also totally doesn’t want to know what happened to the guy.

“Not really,” Joy says, sitting up straight and stretching slightly. “He did work with us for quite some time, but he wasn’t picked by me. He was assigned to us, but still. He was a member of a family.”

“Family?” Joy looks at her, and Yerim covers her mouth with her hand. She probably should know better than finishing a cheeseburger while listening to Joy, but she is also really hungry and can’t help herself.

Joy pulls the right sleeve of her t-shirt up, showing the tattoo.

“It must be weird for an outsider, but. It is a family of sorts.”

Yerim gets down from the table, throwing away the wrapper and going to the sink to wash her hands.

She saw this tattoo on Baekhyun, and the girl with the gun from earlier, Seulgi — when Yerim thinks of it, she also had some kind of tattoo, even though she wasn’t close enough for Yerim to see clearly. The woman just now also had one.

“It is a little weird. But you know, it’s okay,” Yerim walks back to Joy and stops in front of her and puts her hand on Joy’s arm, where the t-shirt ends, stroking the skin slightly in an attempt of reassurance. “I still can see you’re hurt.”

Joy chuckles emotionlessly, looking and not looking at Yerim. “I kind do have a life history with family betrayals.”

Yerim doesn’t pry (isn’t sure she really wants to know too much), just lifts her hand and brushes the hair that got in Joy’s face behind her ear carefully. Joy leans into her touch, looking at Yerim, really looking this time, and her expression isn’t sad anymore. It’s this intent, intimate look which makes Yerim blush and also makes her say things she didn’t really intend on saying.

“Is it okay if I touch your tattoo?” Now, Kim Yerim, that didn’t sound creepy at all.

Joy, however, doesn’t look surprised or repulsed, just smiles at Yerim slyly (Yerim’s heart totally doesn’t skip a bit on that smile) and folds the the sleeve up with her left hand. The dragon stares at Yerim as she touches it.

It seems she was right about it being different to contemporary tattoos. It is definitely old, but the skin there still feels different. Colder than Joy’s skin in general, but also smoother, as if hair stopped growing on the skin there. It almost feels like Yerim’s fingers are drawn towards the dragon as she carefully follows the line of its brows. She is also impossibly close to Joy, she realizes a little belatedly, with her sitting on the table, legs spread to make room for Yerim.

“When did you get it?” Yerim asks, trying to pull away a little, to have some personal space back, but not really wanting to, either.

“I was fifteen,” Yerim can feel Joy’s breath on her neck, which stands on the way of her processing the answer. The arm sneaking around her waist also doesn’t help with concentration.

“That’s, like. Early? Sorry I,” when Yerim turns back to Joy she sees her smiling, really close, and then everything Yerim can think about is them kissing and how Joy said she will be thinking of her… Yerim’s brain carefully supplies her with pictures of everything that happened after Joy left that room, and she feels hot, unable to look away from Joy’s lips.

“You’re really confusing, you know?” Yerim doesn’t know anything right now, so she just stares at Joy, waiting for her to continue. “A good smart girl, who never did anything bad in her entire life, getting involved with organised crime and being really invested in making out with me.” Yerim blushes and tries to look away at that but can’t really deny that being completely true.

It would be better if Yerim herself wasn’t so confused with her actions, but somehow, even with all the freaking out she is very much okay with what is going on. Well, mostly. She is very okay now, with Joy being so close, and with her breath on Yerim’s skin.

“It’s your fault for being so pretty.” Joy laughs surprisedly, fanning hot air on Yerim’s neck, and Yerim notices that she also looks flustered. It boosts Yerim’s confidence a little, even though she is still not sure how someone like her can have such effect on Joy. How it works.

Feeling brave, Yerim puts her hand on Joy’s stomach, where the t-shirt meets skin. Remembering the scars she saw yesterday (just yesterday; god, that’s some very long day), she traces one of them with her thumb. Joy shivers and spreads her legs a little wider, nudging Yerim closer with an arm still around her waist. She seems to be into it. It blows Yerim’s mind, that someone as hot as Joy would be into something Yerim does. Not that Yerim knows what that is that she’s doing, but she doesn’t care any longer, leaning in and closing the distance between their lips.

Joy answers immediately, but this time she doesn’t take over the kiss like she did before, just opening her mouth slightly, giving Yerim the chance to decide. Yerim is not used to actively kiss someone instead of being kissed, but seeing Joy open and flustered like this, waiting for her actions… it’s really empowering. Also maybe it has something to do with Yerim feeling much more confident in the doctor’s robe, or in the surgery room. Which is a good thing, even though being in the surgery room probably shouldn’t involve makeouts.

At first Yerim keeps the kiss chaste, but soon it doesn’t feel enough. A bit frustrated with Joy not willing to make things easier, Yerim slowly licks into Joy’s mouth, deepening the kiss. With her right hand she untangles the tie from Joy’s hair, letting it loose, and then tugs on it just a little. Joy makes a sound, not really a moan, more like a hiccup, and Yerim thinks wildly that making Joy moan for real when she is sitting on the operating table does seem like a life goal. (Now that her other life goals are most likely ruined.) Yerim sucks on Joy’s lower lip and almost moans herself, imagining how her lips look right now, full and red from kissing. Joy does have very kissable lips.

Yerim leads her hand down, tracing the line of the jeans, and thinks for a second that she has a bunch of wounded criminals to stitch and that anyone could walk in any minute. That doesn’t stop her, only encourages to break the kiss to put her mouth on Joy’s neck. Joy gasps at the touch and shivers, sensitive, so Yerim scrapes her teeth down Joy’s neck just to see her tilt her head back and bite her lip trying to hold back sounds.

A surgery room in the basement of the house belonging to geondal seems like the worst place to be doing any of that, but Yerim’s life wasn’t generally filled with the best decisions, as of lately. She pulls Joy’s t-shirt up, breaking away for a second.

She saw Joy naked before, but that was different because back then she didn’t think about this. Well, almost didn’t.

This is finally when Joy stops being passive, tugging the robe off Yerim while she unclasps Joy’s sports bra, which unfortunately doesn’t make the bra slide off, and Yerim still has to take it off over Joy’s head. Fuck sports bras during makeouts.

When all is done with the bra, and Yerim sees Joy disheveled, blushing and topless, she almost freaks out, because she is, in fact, totally and completely gay and really into it, and Joy’s naked torso is probably the hottest thing she’s ever seen. Instead of fear, though, she just feels something like light anger, courage as she takes her t-shirt off herself, just to make it faster and go back to kissing Joy, caressing her stomach, the scar on her right arm, leaving kisses down her neck. She tries not to bother the wound much, making sure Joy isn’t in pain.

Yerim hesitates for a second before touching Joy’s nipple, the careful part of her screaming something like, ‘ _you’re making out with a girl!!!’_ but the heat of Joy’s body and — well, the whole background situation in general is so surreal that she just can’t relate with her careful part. Or her sensible part. Or any part of her brain, really. She runs her fingers over Joy’s breasts, touching the nipples, and Joy finally moans, quiet, wrapping her legs around Yerim and moving closer to her, so there is no space between their bodies whatsoever. The operating table creaks.

When Joy unclasp Yerim’s bra, the sensation of their naked bodies touching is just too much, Yerim losing control of the situation. Joy doesn’t hesitate to take over, kissing the sensitive space under her ear, biting her neck and running her hands down Yerim’s spine. Yerim is so aroused it’s almost painful. It is all the the effect of the stress, which she needs to get rid of, and Joy being irresistibly hot. Yerim is unable to stop or even think about stopping.

When Joy covers the front of her jeans with her hand, lightly, not even pressing, Yerim moans and leans into the touch, feeling like a horny teenager. Not like she ever was a horny teenager, but this mental image she suddenly can relate to.

She leans her forehead on Joy’s shoulder, and feels Joy licking and biting her earlobe slightly.

“Are you sure?” Joy’s breath tickles her ear together with the question.

She is definitely sure, she doesn’t want to think about how sure she is, so she tugs on Joy’s hair again, kissing her deep and biting down on her lip. Joy moans, from the sensation or from Yerim taking over, or both. She presses her hand firmer to Yerim’s crotch and then moves up, stroking near the jeans fly again and undoing the button.

Yerim cups Joy’s breasts again, touching the tender skin, teasing. She can’t take off her jeans completely, not in this position, but Joy seems okay with this, more focused on tugging Yerim’s underwear down together with her pants.

Yerim wonders for a brief second, if that’s to much and they should have stopped, but then she feels Joy’s hands over her chest and the back of her neck, Joy kissing and touching her until she can’t think straight. Her arousal is hot and wet, and honestly, if Joy doesn’t do anything she will do it herself, because she is too horny to be trusted with a needle right now anyway.

Every time their bare nipples touch Yerim feels a spike of electricity down her spine, and at some point she just can’t hold herself back, breaking the kiss and leaning down to lick the skin of Joy’s chest, take her nipple in her mouth. Joy gasps and digs her nails into Yerim’s neck. It’s painful but hot, and Joy probably leaves marks.

“Fuck, Yerim,” Joy hisses, and Yerim laughs breathlessly, lightly scratching her teeth over the nipple.

Joy moans, arching her spine, pressing Yerim’s head closer to her chest. Making out with a girl is so much easier, when Yerim can just do what she likes to be done with her. At least it works with Joy.

Joy covers Yerim’s crotch with her hand, and, gosh, this is really different with a person who actually knows how this works. It also feels so different when it is somebody else touching you like that, and not yourself. Joy’s hand slides lower, pressing inside and she hums, satisfied.

“You are really into this, aren’t you,” she murmurs.

Yerim can’t even see straight, leveraging herself by holding on Joy’s strong arms tightly.

“Fuck you, Joy,” she hisses. “You know I am.”

Joy chuckles, and then just keeps kissing Yerim, flicking her fingers over her clit, her other hand teasing her nipple, a little bit harsher than Yerim would do it herself, but Yerim finds herself liking it very, very much.

Yerim tries to hold back her moans and remind herself that there are actually people outside the room who still can pop in at any given second, but Joy’s hands are very good at keeping her distracted, and from time to time she just slips, moaning louder, kissing and biting Joy’s neck and shoulder, holding her arms tightly, probably leaving marks, too. At some point it just becomes too much, Yerim’s hips bucking into Joy’s touch until she comes, panting, seeing stars in her eyes.

Joy kisses her again, deep, but calming, while Yerim’s head clears, and her heartbeat goes back to something close enough to normal. Joy breaks the kiss and leans down to tug Yerim’s jeans up and zip up the fly. Yerim is still a bit out. First, because that definitely the most intense orgasm in her life, second, because it was actually the first one with another person.

Which is exactly when the door opens, letting someone in, and Yerim freezes, hearing a low, “Wow,” by all too familiar Baekhyun’s voice. It just seems to be Baekhyun’s talent, to disrupt people in the most inconvenient time. Honestly, fuck Baekhyun.

Joy seems to support Yerim’s opinion and mutters, “Baek, get lost,” in that voice Yerim finds both scary and extremely hot. She doesn’t dare turn around, obviously, still topless, but she can hear Baekhyun cackling and closing the door.

They stay like this for a moment, then Joy says, “As much as I enjoyed that — and I enjoyed that a lot — I should probably let you get back to work.”

Oh yeah. Another eight or so patients, sure.

“What about, um. What about you?” Yerim whispers, suddenly feeling embarrassed and shy. Out of all times it is now, Yerim, seriously.

Joy just smiles, gummy, her eyes a bit droopy. Right, she had this whole— thing with like, killing people and getting overall exhausted, and then she… fucked Yerim… god.

“I am capable of handling that, don’t worry,” she kisses Yerim on the lips again, short and simple, and, lips still touching, says, “you owe me one though.”

Yerim overcomes her mortification and says, “Only if you take me out first. I am a good girl, after all.”

Both she and Joy laugh on that and Yerim feels extremely happy when Joy says: “Deal.”

“Are you okay with Baekhyun seeing us, though?” Yerim herself still doesn’t know how to feel about this, but Joy just huffs in that harsh manner she has.

“Baek?” She laughs a little after that, too, loud and a little stupid, as usual. “I am not even sure what surprised him less, me being naked or me being bi. He is well aware of both.”

Yerim prefers not to ask for details.

After they break apart, Joy jumps off the table and picks up her bra and t-shirt. “Do you mind if I come back here after I, um, finish?”

Yerim doesn’t mind at all.

  
***

 

At the fifth patient Yerim cannot tell people apart anymore. The faces are blurring into one. It seems like she will need some time and adjustment to become that patient-attentive doctor who can care about the patients even if they’re so tired they could die.

The wounds still very much remind her of their surgery practice with Zhang-seonsaengnim, which says something about his teaching style. Mostly good things, since it actually got Yerim as ready as she could have been for this.

Everyone is weirdly polite with her. It’s the first time someone calls her seonsaengnim. Yerim isn’t sure if everyone is this calm and patient because that's how the people are here despite the stereotypes, or because Joy took place in the corner of the room, silent.

Joy’s mood seems to have gotten much lighter, but her silence is still heavy, as she watches Yerim’s hands at work, unbothered by blood covering them. She’s still pondering something, it seems.  
  
Now that Yerim has this bit of additional information she notices that all of her patients do in fact have the same tattoo as Joy and Baekhyun, and each time the dragon looks too real, and Yerim catches herself looking at it longer than she should. And even though she tries not to, she remembers the way it felt under her fingers just an hour? two hours? sometime ago.

When the door to the surgery room opens, Yerim startles with surprise, happy her needle wasn’t in the patient at that moment.

“Irene!” Joy exclaims, a mixture of surprise and relief in her voice, at the same moment Yerim turns towards the door.

There are three people by the door. The woman who enters the surgery first is tiny, probably the same height as Yerim, or just a bit taller. Yerim finds herself frozen looking at her. If Yerim were filming a drama about the Korean royal family she would absolutely pick this woman as the main actress for the perfect lines of her face. Her long black hair is set loose around her face, just making the skin seem even clearer, accentuated further by her dark-red lipstick. She is wearing a suit, and Yerim doesn’t need to see a brand or a price to tell that it is the most expensive piece of clothing she’s ever seen. It also looks good on her.

The man Yerim is stitching sits up, jerking Yerim out of contemplation.

“Bae-ssi, good evening,” he says in that voice she would probably only use for Kim Minseok-seonsaengnim during the exams.

It also gets to her in just another second. Zhang Yixing’s concerned look and how he was telling her not to get involved with Bae family. Yet, well, here is the Bae family member, and here she, Kim Yerim, is.

Yerim wants to disappear from the room in some magical way, but then the woman — Irene, apparently — is already staring her down, calm and focused. Yerim thinks helplessly that she must look incredibly stupid — frozen, holding a needle in the middle of a surgery.

There are two tall men, appearing even taller compared to Irene, standing behind her. They are also, of course, horribly attractive, at which Yerim can’t even be surprised anymore, and clad in equally as expensive-looking clothes. They look around the room quickly, measuring Yerim down with sharp eyes, and then bow to Joy politely. Joy waves her fingers at them and smiles when Irene turns to her as well.

Yerim notices the woman’s lip corners curling up just a little, almost imperceptible, which can barely be considered a smile yet looks very human and warm.

Yerim doesn’t think she ever saw Joy smiling as brightly as she does now, voice curious and cute as she half-states, half-asks: “You shouldn’t be back for another couple of days.”

She even flutters her eyelashes at Irene. Irene chuckless shortly and shrugs, slow and graceful.

“I got called in the moment it all started,” she says, brushing her hair behind her shoulder. “I was done with work, so I thought it will be good for me to settle things here. You made a lot of noise, you know.”

It doesn’t seem like Irene is scolding Joy, simply stating the facts, neutral, but the room is so painfully quiet. Yerim doesn’t think she’s ever been in the room this silent before.

Irene eyes Yerim again, and Yerim almost shivers under the weight of her gaze, wanting to get lost, but manages to stay still.

“So that’s Yeri-ya,” Irene hums, something like a shadow of curiosity in her voice. “You’ve created quite a fuss, are you aware of that?”

Joy tries to apologize but Irene just raises her hand, and the room goes quiet again as she certainly needs no reply or explanations. Yerim wants to run away and can’t move, like her feet have grown into the floor, and there is also a patient to be taken care of. She hasn’t even started stitching him yet.

She is also absolutely unaware of the fuss she presumably created (except maybe— accusing her teacher of sexual harassment— oh well), but it’s not like anyone in the room really cares what a med student Kim Yerim missed out on.

Irene looks to the side (her side profile is just as perfect) and nods to her men.

“Let him in,” she says, simple and curt.

One of the men beside her opens the door behind him, letting in Zhang Yixing, out of all people.

“Zhang-seonsaengnim?!” Yerim finally speaks, completely lost, only to have Joy interject her.

“You?!” Joy’s face of utter shock looks a lot like a deep very badly suppressed fury.

“Do you know him?” Yerim’s voice sounds squeaky, but she can’t be ashamed of it now. Zhang Yixing keeps it cool and bows to everyone, Yerim automatically bowing back.

Before Joy has a chance to answer, Irene starts speaking, and the room falls into silence again, creepily fast.

“Joonmyun called me at lunch and told me that he has Zhang Yixing raging in the middle of the hospital and demanding to talk to me. I got interested, to be honest, so I met him, and he told me about Kim Yerim. I see you are keeping her busy?”

Yerim would probably have died if Irene was speaking to her like that, wants to die just from Irene saying her name, but Joy isn’t bothered much, staring at Irene with sparkling eyes and smiling again, cheekily.

“That's a long story,” she singsongs nonchalantly.

The corners of Irene’s mouth curl upwards again, but she presses her lips together briefly and nods.

“I guess we can leave Zhang-seonsaengnim to help our lovely volunteer while we talk,” she says, turning to Yixing. “I can count on you here, I guess?”

Zhang Yixing nods to her, smiling politely, and moves aside to let others out of the room, leaving Yerim with  a patient, a still unfinished wound, her seonsaengnim and a very tense prolonged silence, which he decisively breaks.

“Finish with this one, please, and I’ll get ready.”

Yerim nods, even though seonsaengnim has already turned to the sink, and looks back at the wound. Right, surgery. Surgery is important.

The work goes much faster once Zhang Yixing joins her. He doesn’t take over the needle, as Yerim expects him to, simply taking the assistant’s place and leaving it upon Yerim to make decisions, as if she were a real doctor, not him. She can kind of understand the reason for that, though, because she was the one who volunteered for this, so that is her job to finish.

They work mostly in silence only interrupted by something like ‘Pass me the syringe’ and ‘It’s better to start here’ (although Yixing never forgets to use polite speech, unlike Yerim). The patients also keep quiet, even though Yerim’s already learnt they have no problem talking with people stitching them. Now, however, it almost seems as if they don’t want to break the silence settled by Irene’s presence.

Yerim’s head is flooded with questions for Zhang Yixing. What does all of this mean? Why isn’t seonsaengnim mad at her? Or is he? Maybe he’s just hiding it well. Yerim is both relieved at his presence — someone whom she actually knows and can share her fears with — and a little terrified, because, well, because she disgraced him in public and got into some mess despite him warning her against it, and stole the instruments and stuff, and does he too kill people—

There are still wounded people. If anything, it’s not an appropriate situation to ask questions, and also these people don’t need to know anything extra, probably. They continue stitching.

 

***

 

The door after the tenth or maybe eleventh patient shuts, and both Yixing and Yerim stare at it expectantly, but it never opens again. After a minute Yixing walks towards the door himself, opens it, closes again and sighs in relief. He takes off his gloves and throws them right on the table instead of the trash can, sitting down on the floor in the corner of the room. He pushes his glasses up on his head, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

Yerim has a brief intention of cleaning up the surgery room, but then just repeats what Yixing just did with the gloves and sits down next to him. Yerim's fingertips vibrate numbly from the exhaustion and she sees her reflection in Zhang Yixing's tired bloodshot eyes when he lifts his head to look at her.

Only then Yerim finally lets her thoughts get better of her and blurts out: “I am so sorry about everything.”

Yixing looks surprised for a second, apparently on the verge of asking what she’s sorry for, but then probably just considers the last couple of days and simply nods.

“That’s okay.”

The silence then becomes unbearable again. Yerim wants to ask so many things, but she’s tired, and her thoughts are jumbled to the point that she can’t actually formulate a decent question. She ends up just mumbling something stupid and unfinished like, “How’s that…?”

Seonsaengnim doesn’t ask what she means, understanding her right away again (probably showing all the years of experience teaching inarticulate kids like Yerim). He shrugs and frowns deeply, a line between his brows. He leans his head on the tiled wall and speaks, his eyes half-closed.

“I used to work for Bae-ssi. Not for, well, Irene-ssi. For her father before he died.” The frown gets deeper, as he evidently remembers something, and Yerim wants to turn away but finds herself unable to as she feels like she approaches somewhere she was never supposed to find herself — personal details of Zhang Yixing. He continues. “There weren’t many places where a Chinese med student could find an internship for surgery, so one of the immigrant friends I knew introduced me to him. Told me he had a hospital I can get a job in, if I didn’t mind doing just minor— Well, minor illegal stuff.”

Yixing huffs at his own words and glances at Yerim, as if apologizing. Yerim can’t stand her teacher having to feel ashamed in front of her, so she wants to say that it’s understandable, and honestly, so far in his story she relates to him super hard; after all, she has been doing some minor illegal stuff too. Then she realizes that would be an inappropriate thing to say, and she also can’t form words in her head still.

“I worked in his hospital for some time, and occasionally did the same thing you were doing now,” Yixing goes on, apparently having read Yerim’s thoughts. “Met both current Bae-ssi and Park-ssi there. Then we had some major misunderstanding just before Bae-ssi was… before he passed away, so I used that as an excuse to get out of there and actually supposed I would never set my foot back again.” Yixing goes silent for a moment, Yerim processing his words and thinking how he did get back here just simply to get her out of the trouble she got herself in. Now it’s her time to feel guilty, and she wants to thank him, but before she can do that Yixing says, “You did well today. Consider you passed my exam for practice.”

Yerim turns to him, dull and tired. She is not exactly ready to think about her future, which seems pretty fucked up, and the only thing she can muster, instead of words of gratitude and apology, is, “Are they not going to expel me?”

Yixing opens his eyes fully and looks at her straight-on, surprised. “Why would they? Did you do something else I’ve missed?”

Oh boy, where to start.

“I stole equipment. I prescribed drugs illegally. I missed Kim seonsaengnim lectures!” It takes some time for Yerim to understand that the last statement sounds stupid, especially with that being almost the only lecture she missed for the past year, but Yixing is already laughing.

“I will talk to Minseok, if that’s what you are really worried about. He is actually a softie, especially to the students who are good at his subject. Just be a good girl for the rest of the term.”

As far as someone calling Kim-seonsaengnim a softie is the most ridiculous thing to happen today, a bit of hope still blooms at Yerim’s heart. “And the rest?”

Yixing shrugs noncommittally, like she is worried over nothing. “I guess I really did miss the drug prescribing part. Anything serious?”

Yerim forces herself to think and lists the medicines she got yesterday. Yixing shrugs again.

“Bring the rest of the medications and the instruments tomorrow. I never told anyone they were missing, so no one will know. I will give the medicine to a patient with the suitable diagnosis, and if anyone ever asks I will just tell them that you made a mistake in the prescription,” he seems to think for a second, “In this case I will have to scold you for inaccuracy or something, but I guess I’ll skip that part.”

After a beat of silence, where Yerim feels so relieved she almost cries, Yixing’s voice suddenly gets soft, as he continues: “You didn’t do anything horrible. Or at least not that horrible. Just helped some people as a doctor would.”

Which is when Yerim finally manages, nervous tears in her eyes, still trying to hold back a sob, “Thank you. For everything. You did a lot for me today.”

Before Yixing can speak again, the door opens and Yerim hears Joy sing-song cheerfully, “Yeri-ya, are you done?”

Yerim wipes down the tears quickly, making sue Joy doesn’t see them, and stands up on wobbly legs, smiling at her weakly.

Yerim and Yixing both wash their hands and finally take off their white robes. After they’re done cleaning up, a tired silence almost crushes Yerim down from where she stands, as she grips the sink. But the day isn’t over yet, so she just braces all what’s left of her together and nods to Joy. Yerim’s so tired she isn’t sure if Joy really looks a bit concerned. Either way, she doesn’t say anything, and the three of them leave the room where Yerim just had the most busy and engaged of a medical practice she's ever experienced.

When they get to the common space, it is much less crowded then before. Makes sense; some people probably left for their own places.

The ones who stayed are more or less familiar to Yerim. Baekhyun sits on the sofa and drinks something looking like beer which Yerim should probably scold him for, but she doesn’t feel she can handle interacting with Baekhyun now. Kyungsoo sits next to him, and the gun girl Seulgi’s head lies on Baekhyun’s knees with her legs on Kyungsoo’s lap. Kyungsoo’s computer is settled atop of her legs, and it looks so domestic Yerim blinks a couple of times, until she notices a bunch of carefully cleaned and sorted guns and gun uh— pieces on the table next to the sofa, as Seulgi polishes some metal part in her hands. Truly the gun girl then.

Irene sits in the chair, and both men, probably her bodyguards (or at least they act like that) sit next to her on the second sofa, speaking between each other quietly. There is another guy, whom Yerim hasn’t seen before. She remembers the conversation she overheard in the car and figures he must be the Dae they mentioned. Or whoever else, honestly.

The people left seem to be the ones mostly engaged into whatever business is going on here, with the rest being nothing more than some kind of the brute force or something. At least it seems so, since the atmosphere now has become way more different than before; calm, like after a long busy day. Which is true, too.

It all looks very homely and Yerim is super done, she would just drop on the floor or whenever they’d let her sleep, but it’s still not a reality she wants for herself. She wants a shower. She wants to go to her room and study chemistry and not deal with very fearsome Irene ever in her life.

She turns to Joy, who still stands beside her, meaning to ask her what she’s supposed to do now, since she knows Joy the longest.

"So um," Yerim says, and not only Joy but everyone else turns to look at her, too. "I guess I'm— free? Can I go home now?"

"We'll take you," Baekhyun says as enthusiastically as one can with a hole in their body, and tries to stand up, pinned back by Seulgi’s unhappy stare and some quiet grumbling from where she lies on his lap. “Okay, okay Seulgi, I am not going anywhere. Sorry, Yeri-ya, I seem to be occupied.”

That’s when Irene stands up from her place. The guys beside her stop speaking and turn to watch her carefully.

"It’s fine, Baekhyun," Irene says softly, and the quiet becomes even more prominent, as if everything in the world has stopped solely to let her speak, once again. "I'll take you."

Yerim just blinks. Over— however many hours they were operating, the only things Irene did were bringing Yixing in, and causing a mild freak-out session to pretty much everyone else. Sure, Joy seems to be very enthusiastic about her (which is, now that Yerim's common sense is back to her, _fair_ ), but Yerim doesn’t even know who Irene is and why she has this effect on everyone. It is hard to predict what actually comes with that ‘I'll take you’ package.

Zhang Yixing doesn't seem to have any idea either.

"Bae-ssi," he says just as softly, stepping forward, shielding Yerim from Irene — intentionally or not.

"Seonsaengnim," Irene interrupts him swiftly. "Let me take care of things."

"I am not trying to interfere with your work," Zhang Yixing says, looking on the verge of going full-on Chinese politeness level with 'young lady's and 'would you be so kind's, "but Kim Yerim is my student, above all other things."

"And those are my people she stitched. And my business she got herself into,” Irene says; she has a way of speaking, as if continuing the phrase of the other rather than interrupting them. Even though it's exactly what she is doing. "I don't see what we are arguing about, seonsaengnim."

Yerim cannot see her teacher's face, but she sees his shoulders move with a sigh.

"I am hoping to hear from you once you reach your apartment, Yerim-ssi," Zhang Yixing says, turning to her. His face is, as per usual, politely void of emotion. Other than exhaustion, that is. He accidentally went too hard on a formal style.

I am hoping to hear from me too, Yerim means to say.

"You've got blood on your glasses, seonsaengnim," she says instead, and Zhang Yixing blinks and crosses his eyes confusedly.

This eases the clutches of numb fear that were constricting Yerim's breathing from the moment Irene spoke up.

"Let's go," Irene says to Yerim. Then both bodyguards stand up, startling Yerim a little. Irene shifts her gaze at one of them, a guy with chiseled features and expressive brows: “Sehun, don’t forget to grab your luggage from Seulgi.”

Sehun nods and walks by the table, carefully picking up the case standing next to the sofa. Seulgi looks at him and says quietly: “You break any more of my girls and I am breaking your leg.”

Sehun, a Chanyeol-height bodyguard, looks flustered at that, almost blushing. “Sorry. My bad.”

"Call me!" Joy yells when Yerim turns to leave, unable to try figuring this out anymore. Irene chuckles quietly, and Yerim — Yerim can't even muster up the energy to blush. She is also pretty sure she doesn’t have Joy’s phone number, partially because—

"I don't have my phone," she says distractedly. Irene turns to Kyungsoo as he reaches for his pocket to fish out Yerim’s phone and hand it to Irene.

"Here." She hands it to Yerim. Her hands are small and cool to touch.

The phone turned off. Of course. The second guy is already holding the door open, and Yerim leaves, following Sehun and Irene.

Irene's car is fancy, sleek and black, windows tinted. Irene stops a little away from the car, and so does Yerim, since she is not sure what is happening. Yerim doesn’t understand how to behave in general and where she's supposed to sit, even. Sehun comes closer to the car, checking something under it and opening the trunk to put in the luggage. After that is done he opens the door and looks around the car salon, as well. He opens the front side also, then closes it and nods to Irene, taking the driver’s seat. Only then they walk closer.

Then there’s a mishap which Yerim doesn’t get a first. Both Irene and the second guy try to go to the same door at the same time.

“What are you doing?” Irene asks.

“The rules require me to take a seat beside you, Irene-ssi,” he says, and his eyes immediately zero in on Yerim when she hesitantly moves toward the passenger seat. Irene looks at her, and Yerim swallows and stops. Irene shifts her gaze to the bodyguard again.

“Jongin,” Irene says gently, Yerim tripping on an unfamiliar word before figuring it must be the name. The guy frowns and huffs, involuntary pout on his lips. What a fucking handsome criminal gang they’ve got, Yerim thinks distractedly, far from the first time. The guy doesn’t argue anymore and walks around the car to open the door for Yerim. She wavers and thanks him clumsily, hearing Sehun chuckle a little. Irene gets into the car herself, which seems to exasperate Jongin to quite some extent. He doesn’t say anything, though, and gets into the passenger seat next to Sehun.

Once Yerim is in the car, her nerves give out completely. (Which is not medically correct, of course, but she can’t be bothered about terminology right now.)

If the impact of Irene's presence was kind of dispersed when there were other people around, it's much more nerve-wrecking now.

"Can I turn on the phone?" Yerim asks unsurely, voice breaking.

Irene doesn't answer immediately, looking out of the tinted window as they drive out of the parking lot.

"I'd prefer that you didn't," she says finally. She is very soft-spoken, but it doesn't make her any less terrifying. Yerim swallows and thinks for a couple of seconds.

"I have a friend waiting for me," she finally says, "she is— she doesn't know where I am— "

"Don't tell her anything too revealing, then," Irene says.

The phone almost falls out of Yerim's shaking hands.

"Thank you," she says.

When they drive out on the street (which Yerim doesn't recognize, obviously), Yerim thinks of one more thing.

"Do I have to— Uh, when I was driven here, they blindfolded me— "

"I'm sure you wouldn't do anything foolish, Yerim," Irene says, looking at her briefly, and smiles slightly. It is the same smile she used with Joy, just without the warmth touching her eyes, and like that this smile is destroying the rest of Yerim’s calmness, as if there’s any left. "You can close your eyes, if you want to, of course."

This is when Yerim blushes. God damn it.

When the phone loads, a whole whirlwind of messages start arriving, and Yerim quickly turns off the volume. Most of the messages are from Seungwan, a couple from Chanyeol. Yerim looks through them briefly, not to overwhelm herself even more, and then stops at the latest one from Seungwan (two hours ago) which implies that their friendship is ruined.

Well. Come to think of it, Yerim kind of deserves it.

 **yeri** im going home

 **yeri** im sorry unnie im

 **yeri** im

 **yeri** we’ll talk when i get back

 **yeri** please

There is one more message from **Joy** **♡**. The message is just a smiley face.

Sehun turns on the radio but Yerim can’t really make out any words; both because it’s not loud enough and because she’s tired and scared and everything is a white noise.

“So, Yerim,” Irene says, and that’s the moment Yerim finally does drop her phone on the car’s floor.

She scrambles for it and sits up straight, looking at Irene. She looks back at her. Yerim is overcome with the urge to look away or, actually, close her eyes for real, but she punches through the wave of fear and keeps looking. Her eyes are burning from exhaustion.

“You do realize what you got yourself into, don’t you?” Irene asks.

“I might have a vague idea,” Yerim tries carefully. Irene exhales a cold laugh. Yerim wants to jump out of the car, but that, the same as their university window yesterday, does not work like that.

“I want you to understand, Kim Yerim,” Irene says, drumming her fingers on her knee, “that nothing comes for free. Not in anyone’s lives, but especially not in ours.”

 _I have just stitched a dozen of your men_ , Yerim thinks dimly and also, fleetingly, thinks that she should maybe let someone know she’s about to die. Is Joy aware of such possibility?

“Which is why you should be endlessly grateful to Zhang-seonsaengnim,” Irene goes on. Yerim is having an emotional whiplash so powerful her vision goes blurry and she feels nauseous. “If not for him being your teacher — if not for him wanting to keep you alive enough to ask me for a favour — we would have got rid of you by this time.”

Irene doesn’t speak up again, and after a minute or so Yerim realizes she’s waiting for her reaction.

“Okay,” she says faintly, her throat barely working around the sounds. “I’ll make sure to thank him.”

“There is another thing, too,” Irene adds, and Yerim just— speaks before she can stop herself.

“Please don’t describe to me how exactly you would’ve got rid of me,” she blurts. Her ears ring from the silence that follows, although the radio is still on.

“We usually stick to one safe method,” Irene says; it seems like she wants to laugh but her face is perfectly calm. “Although we do have a variety. It’s just less messy. No-one has ever been found, too.”

Yerim stares at the back of Jongin’s seat blankly and doesn’t think of any graphic ways to die. She doesn’t.

“It’s not the thing, though,” Irene says. “Zhang-seonsaengnim… is certainly someone you should be grateful for your life to. I, however, should be grateful to you for taking care of my people. And, more than anything, helping Joy out.”

She falls silent again, and Yerim just turns to helplessly look at her. She doesn’t understand anything anymore. It was so much easier to pin people with needles.

“This is a remarkable thing to do, Yerim,” Irene continues. “All the more so for such a young person. I don’t want to leave that action without a gratification.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Yerim says. She has no idea how the gifts from the criminal gang leader will affect her life in the future. Although, admittedly, making out with a criminal gang member could affect her life more. “It’s my own, personal moral obligation as a doctor.”

“Consider this as an expression of my own, personal greed,” Irene says with a smile. “Please hear me out.”

Hearing out Yerim could do. Maybe. If she doesn’t pass out from anxiety.

Irene changes her position, crossing one leg over the other, and says, “I have a job offer for you.”

No, nope, Yerim clearly isn’t able of hearing out, because she has hallucinations. Irene smiles at her undoubtedly clueless face and continues, brushing her hair away behind her shoulder.

“Nothing criminal, of course,” she chuckles at it, while everything in Yerim screams that _it’s not a funny joke!!_ “Seeing that you are a very devoted and skillful surgeon already, I figured you wouldn’t mind a position in a hospital.”

“Uuuum,” Yerim usefully supplies after Irene pointedly falls silent. _Don’t get involved with Bae family,_ imaginary Yixing in her head says.

“In such a position you are in right now, it would be difficult and stressful for you to climb up a career ladder after the graduation. We live in a man-dominated world managed by nepotism,” Irene frowns at it. Yerim suddenly thinks, a fast erratic thought, of what Irene herself has been through to get where she stands now in the exact same world Yerim lives in. As if hearing her thoughts, Irene continues. “As much as it is funny coming from myself, since our community in particular is built on family ties. Still, although the notion of family is important for each one of us, so is skill. I can’t say the same for the broader community you are a part of, Yerim.”

Yerim doesn’t know whether Irene is such a good speaker because it’s a skill, or because Yerim is too afraid to oppose her. Which is probably a skill in itself -- inflicting fear. Might be a mixture of both, though, because Yerim doesn’t have anything to say against Irene’s reasoning, as well. Been thinking the same thing herself, honestly. She could never find a decent job being a female graduate surgeon. And all her ties just lead to the same family hospital back home.

“So I think it is a great opportunity for you to show yourself and for your abilities to be noticed,” Irene goes on, glancing at Yerim sideways from where she’s looking ahead past Sehun’s head. Both he and Jongin keep very quiet which is a part their job, obviously, but for which Yerim is immensely thankful nonetheless.

“Do I,” Yerim starts hoarsely and clears her throat before repeating, “do I have any time to consider that— ” She realizes, belatedly, that she has no idea of how to refer to Irene; is it appropriate to call her Bae-ssi? Or anyhow else?

“Of course,” Irene replies smoothly, smiling, giving out no information on preferred honorifics, “as well as you have the right to gauge more information about the position and the necessary requirements. I see you’re already overloaded,” Yerim mumbles a flustered apology, “that is totally understandable and I am not blaming you for that. However I will have my man contacting you with the details on the job and the organization necessary for you to know.”

Yerim lets it settle a little better in her mind. A leader of a mafia gang (possibly planning to take over the world) is offering her a job. In a hospital, it seems. With the prospect of career advancement. And, quite likely, with no actual room for refusal.

Yerim’s heart picks up its speed again, when she says, “I really do need to think about it.”

“Of course,” Irene says and smiles like she already knows Yerim’s answer. Of course she does. “I have expectations of you, Kim Yerim. I would be happy to build a mutually beneficial relationship with you.”

 _You would be a great addition to the team,_ Baekhyun says in her head, smiling with all teeth.

“Thank you,” Yerim says faintly. “Thank you so much.”

Irene smiles, this time with her eyes joining, and Yerim can’t hold back a really inappropriate thought of how perfectly beautiful she is.

Irene looks towards the driver’s seat, seemingly done with Yerim, and she slouches back in her seat, trying her best not to like, faint or have a panic attack.

“Documents?” Irene speaks again, a half-question, half-order. Yerim watches Jongin open the glove compartment and just hopes that it truly doesn’t concern her anymore.

Irene reaches out and takes a transparent folder with some papers from Jongin and hands it over to Yerim right away.

Well fuck.

Yerim takes the folder numbly, noticing there’s a pen tucked in as well. She has no idea what those documents could possibly be for, and she’s pretty sure she looks absolutely dumbfounded by this point, zero understanding in her eyes.

Irene smiles, just a bit softer than before, “Sigh this.”

“It’s about the job?” Yerim guesses hesitantly. She’d thought they settled on giving her time. Otherwise what else does she have to sign at all.

Irene shakes her head, her hair sliding down her shoulder. “No. That is about confidentiality and non-disclosure of everyone and everything you saw, heard or did today to your friends, family, police or any other person.”

Oh. Right. That makes sense.

“Just to be short and honest,” Irene adds helpfully before Yerim can ask further questions, “you are not leaving the car alive without this being signed.”

Yerim is almost grateful for the honesty, as much as she can. She doesn’t even look through the papers (which might be the biggest mistake in her life but she doesn’t care, not now) and signs them, then putting them back in the folder and giving it back to Irene. She looks satisfied.

They drop her off near her apartment block, Jongin opening the door for her and insisting that he go take her up to the very door of her flat.

“This is very considerate of you, uum, Jongin-ssi, but how would I explain this to my flatmate,” Yerim counters.

Jongin’s determined frown tells her that interpersonal relationships are secondary to the safety, and he then goes on to prove it further.

“It is my job to escort you, ensuring your safety—”

Yerim doesn’t know why exactly her knees are shaking when she stands, but the nerves surely don’t add patience to her personality.

“If I get shot two steps into my house, then so be it,” she says, after a moment’s thought adding, “Jongin-ssi. So thank you, but no, thank you.”

Jongin’s mouth shuts, and he and Yerim both look at each other with large eyes. She hears Sehun snort from the car.

This is how they part, with Jongin and Yerim awkwardly bowing to each other and exchanging a “you worked hard today”. Yerim gets into the apartment block without anybody attacking her. She almost regrets it when she realizes what’s awaiting her inside of her apartment.

It’s dead silent at first, and then Chanyeol’s voice booms, “Kim Yerim!”

Yerim shrinks on herself, but it obviously doesn’t work the way she wants, so she just stands by the door helplessly, looking at Chanyeol, worried and wide-eyed, then at Seungwan, whose face is red and puffy from crying.

At least Chanyeol kept her company. At least someone here is a decent friend.

“Hello,” she says and trips on her legs trying to undo her shoes. Chanyeol holds her up.

“Yeri,” Seungwan says, and Yerim cowers at her voice, a little nasally and scratchy from crying. “I swear to god, if you don’t explain everything to me right now—”

She doesn’t finish, although Yerim waits hopefully for the punishment. Okay. So that means she has to tell everything (well, not everything; certainly not everything) first, and then Seungwan will do the terrible thing to her anyway.

“Well,” Yerim says, walking towards the chair in the kitchen on shaking legs and crushing down. It is hard to summarize this couple of days but, well. “So I uh. I am kinda gay. And I got a girlfriend. And we had sex,” she pauses to think and realizes that the last bit of information was not necessary. “And, um, also I just got a job offer?”

The looks on her friend’s faces, much worried, a bit shocked and completely confused, make her think vacantly that this will be one long and exhaustive talk. Especially considering that they definitely do not need to know all the details.

 

***

 

“Okay, that’s all for today. Please review all the information carefully before the next week’s test.” Yixing-seonsaengnim takes off the glasses and starts cleaning the board while the students pack the bags and leave.

The first thing Yerim does even before closing her notebook is checking for the incoming messages. She is, of course, always attached to her phone much like everyone is these days, but since she met Joy the urge to open her phone and check her messages has become unbearable even during the lectures.

Yerim still worries about her studies, now that they didn’t expel her, so she resists the temptation to chat with Joy during classes. Now, though, there is a bunch of messages from her.

 **Joy** **♡** Yeri-ya I m bored

 **Joy** **♡** Yeri-ya you choose your uni over me???

 **Joy** **♡** it's seonsaengnim who is your favourite right, not me

Yerim chuckles at that, catching a surprised glance from Daehyun. Yerim gets a little embarrassed and waves her hand at Dahyun to show that it’s nothing, turning back to her phone. Other messages contain a whole lot of sad and lonely emojis indicating that Joy for sure is bored to death.

It’s not always like this, though, since Joy still has her _business_. Some days Joy doesn’t message Yerim at all, only managing to throw a short "busy," as a sign that she is alive. They haven’t even seen each other for that week, because Joy never asked, and Yerim really wanted to, but was afraid to appear clingy.

 **yeri** you're my favourite but i still have to get a degree you know

Joy answers immediately.

 **Joy** **♡** you are my nerdy sweetie pie

A lot of kissing emojis follow, and Yerim blushes a bit, almost putting the phone away but stopping at the last moment to send one kissing emoji back to Joy. Some excellent flirting technique right there.

Yerim finally starts packing her stuff hastily. Seungwan agreed to meet her in the hall after the lecture finishes, so she needs to hurry. Or at least she thinks so, when she finally zips up her backpack, thinking fleetingly that it desperately needs cleaning. Too bad Yerim would rather spend a hot night with Kim Minseok’s lectures than try to look presentable for once in her life.

She lifts her backpack on her shoulder and turns to leave, when she hears, “Kim Yerim-ssi, would you please stay,” in Yixing’s favourite extremely polite and heavy with scary implications voice.

The other students, as slow as Yerim, glance back at him, surprised, also sparing a curious looks to Yerim. She tries to keep her bitch-face and present herself as unbothered as possible. Despite the incident at the fire exit being ignored by the university management (thankfully; at least in this case), the word got around, of course. Seungwan would tell Yerim she heard that she and Yixing were dating; Dahyun still seems to believe Yixing is secretly a monster harassing his best student.

It’s been exhausting and mortifying, but honestly, Yerim feels a little relieved. If that is the punishment she gets for committing actual crimes, that is totally okay with her. Though Zhang-seonsaengnim might feel different, but she never asked. She probably should.

Dahyun looks at her worriedly and nudges her side slightly. “Are you okay?”

Yerim laughs a little forced.

“Of course I’m fine, hey. I’m still shocked you’d believe something like this,” she says lightly, punching Dahyun in the shoulder. It pulls the laugh out of her, and she seems to believe Yerim. Still, Dahyun eyes Yixing suspiciously all the way to the exit, and then turns to look at him one last time.

God. The relief part was over-exaggerated. Yerim feels horrible.

They wait a couple more minutes until everyone leaves the room, and then she swallows her worries down and forces herself to talk.

“Zhang-seonsaengnim, I am really sorry about all of this.” She might be apologizing to him every time they meet, but living through the public humiliation never makes her apologies solid enough.

Yixing raises his brow, but compared to Kim Minseok’s gesture it looks softer, especially given the part where Yixing also smiles at her, dimply.

“It’s fine,” he says, chuckling, and starts sorting through the print-outs of the lecture. “I can survive a bunch of students gossipping. They’ll switch to the stories of Minseok-seonsaengnim eating students in the lab when the finals start.”

Yerim laughs, although a bit awkward. She doesn’t feel very comfortable knowing that her professors are aware of the student lore going around. As much as she’s glad their shared crime made Zhang-seonsaengnim and her closer, she’s not sure she can endure him revealing just how little is truly hidden from the teacher’s eye.  
  
“So you took up the offer from Bae-ssi?” Yixing asks, tone perfectly neutral, just like his face. It is especially hard to understand his emotions when he looks down at his notebook, marking something.

Yerim is not particularly surprised about him knowing this piece of information (as compared to this bit about Kim Minseok eating students). Still, he knows, and he knows she’d disregarded his advice. God, the reasons to apologize to Zhang Yixing will never end.

“Um, yeah,” Yerim says, shifting her weight from one leg to another. “I did. I am sorry, I— I do remember what you told me but—”

Zhang-seonsaengnim finally looks up at her, with a small smile again, surprisingly.

“It’s okay. I can’t blame you, really. It’s not like I was ever able to refuse her. She has a way of getting to people,” he stops for a minute seeming to remember something, maybe, but then continues. “It is still a good opportunity for you as a doctor, so I am actually glad it turned out like this.”

Yerim immediately has a million questions about the nature of Irene’s relationships with seonsaengnim, but she wisely shuts up, as she learned to do on her little trip last weekend.

“I hope you do understand that this isn’t just some regular job, though,” Yixing finishes seriously.

Yerim shivers uncomfortably under his gaze.

“If I wanted a regular job, I wouldn’t have been studying here at all, so I guess I am fine with it,” she says after thinking through her words.

Yixing raises his brows, seemingly a bit taken aback by her answer. Yerim quickly thinks back on her words again, automatically starting to regret saying anything, but she doesn’t, actually. Even back in school, pretty much every teacher knew where she wanted to apply and what she wanted to do, and they tried to make her change her mind, too, but she never listened. It’s not her best quality, ignoring others’ advice, but now she’s happy with it.

The door to the class opens, and Seungwan pokes her head in.

“Yeri-ya, what’s taking so—” she starts at her usual volume and then quickly interrupts herself, looking at Yerim, then at Yixing, then back. She continues much quieter, “Um, I’ll just—”

“It’s fine,” Yixing says, smiling once again. For a second Yerim thinks he enjoys all the confusion and rumors to some extent. “We’re done already anyway. Kim-ssi, if you need anything, make sure to ask, okay? You are my student after all.”

Yerim blushes and nods quickly, moving to leave the class together with Seungwan, but at the last moment remembers something. Something she should have probably remembered doing before she signed her employment paypers on Friday, or at least before she got distracted with Joy’s messages. She is an unorganized mess.

“Actually, unnie, could you please wait outside with Chanyeol for another moment?” Yerim asks by the door and pouts just in case it works.

Seungwan looks at her, partly confused partly exasperated, and Yerim offers a smile. Seungwan sighs and leaves the class.

Both she and Chanyeol did believe Yerim’s story where Yixing was just involved in her new job offer, and Yerim didn’t tell them about it earlier because she was afraid to jinx it. Chanyeol let it go easily, but Seungwan took a lot more effort from Yerim to convince. Because Seungwan is a good and observant friend and because pieces of Yerim’s story went together much less fluently then she’d prefer them to. Since then, Seungwan became very sensitive to any excessive weirdness.

Yerim turns back to Yixing, inhaling a bit deeper than usual to gather some courage to ask him one more question. Zhang-seonsaengnim looks at her with a slight frown, undoubtedly noticing her uneasiness.

“I wanted to ask, um. You mentioned there, like, in the surgery room—” For god’s sake Yerim, stop mumbling, she reprimands herself and looks at Yixing, probably too fast and intense, as he blinks. “You mentioned some kind of major misunderstanding? I mean, between you and. Between you and uh, former Bae-ssi? I am sorry if it is personal, but I feel like I have to ask, before starting to work there.”

Although it might be too late already because she’s signed the papers. There is a reason why people like her get fooled so easily.

She expects Yixing’s frown to get deeper, but instead it smoothes out a bit.

“That’s okay. I am surprised you didn’t ask earlier,” he says jokingly, as Yerim laughs politely. At this point of her life her lack of consistency doesn’t surprise her anymore. “Well, you see, you can not be just a doctor and a geondal member. You can be a geondal member having some doctor skills, sure, but I do believe that both is not an option.” He looks at her, searching for the signs that she understands what he’s talking about. She kind of does, so she nods, and Yixing continues, “Bae-ssi prefered everyone to be a part of his world. I prefered to be a doctor.”

Yixing goes silent after that, probably waiting for some reaction from Yerim, but she can’t find anything she would like to say, so she just looks at him, hoping that her face doesn’t express her utter confusion. Zhang-seonsaengnim smiles at her, cute dimple on his cheek, completely unsuitable for a surgery professor and an almost ex-geondal-member, or whatever.

“I hope, though, you won’t face the same thing. As much as Irene-ssi resembles her father, and that's a lot, I think she does have a different approach.” He pauses, but then adds, “You will get it at some point. Just remember, if you want to be a good doctor and fulfill your ambitions, you are first thing a doctor, and only then everything else, okay?”

It’s a little bit too much to process right away. Yerim nods quickly, promising herself to think through this conversation later. The silence grows a bit too long, and Yerim tries to find some polite excuse to leave, but before she manages to, Yixing chuckles lightly. He really does enjoy awkward situations a bit too much.

“Okay, that’s all the wisdom I have to share for now,” he says cheekily. “Just go out to your new world with a job and studies to keep up, and try not to die, okay? Go.”

Yerim bows awkwardly, both terrified and excited about his last promise, and finally leaves the classroom to be immediately met with Seungwan and Chanyeol’s questioning stares. Chanyeol looks into the classroom and steps aside right away; he’s been jumpy around Zhang Yixing these days.

“It’s about the new job,” Yerim explains to Seungwan before she has a chance to suspect anything. “I have my orientation today, remember?”

It’s sunny and finally warm enough this Monday, when Yerim, Seungwan and Chanyeol leave the university. Yerim and Seungwan are done with lectures for today, and Chanyeol seems to prefer keeping Seungwan company to the actual studying. What’s new, though.

Now that she’s got studies off her shoulder for today, anticipation for the upcoming orientation day is churning in Yerim’s stomach. Kim Joonmyun-ssi had called her the previous Wednesday, providing her with the details. It’s a pretty well-known hospital, so Yerim was surprised (or was she, really) to learn who owns it, although Joonmyun-ssi had made it very clear that very few people in the hospital actually know anything about any connection to geondal.

“We would prefer to keep it this way, Kim-ssi,” he added. He had been even more soft-spoken than Irene, and just as persuasive, even though he used different methods to get his point across. He made Yerim spend quite some time brainstorming over the most plausible reason of getting this position, had she been asked this by her future colleagues.

Her job is supposed to start from a simple medical orderly position, though, which Yerim is actually qualified to do, and it’s a good, steady start. It promises that the last week Saturday’s events won’t become a routine thing. Hopefully. Not right away, at least.

Although, if that could get her to seeing Joy more regularly than it had been this whole week, she would maybe prefer stitching criminals more often.

“Look who is there,” Seungwan coos cutely, dragging Yerim out of her train of thoughts.

The first thing she sees is some guy from her chemistry class and almost wants to ask Seungwan what’s up with him, but Seungwan huffs and nudges her to look towards the road. There Yerim can finally see Joy, beaming at her brightly from the street and waving her hand. Yerim’s heart kind of leaps, repeating the same path as Joy’s hand. Which is not anatomically correct. Still feels like that.

What is absolutely true, though, is that leather pants so tight induce heart attacks, especially worn by Joy, and therefore should be prohibited by law.

Having missed Joy so much, Yerim now can’t look at her for too long and turns to Seungwan, flustered. Joy is very pretty, and Yerim is extremely not ready to properly introduce all three of them to each other. Seungwan looks at her and laughs, waving it off.

“Okay-okay. I see who your favourite really is. But you still owe me a lunch together,” she says, pointing a finger at Yerim’s nose. Chanyeol smiles at her, too, showing all teeth.

Seongwan is truly a god-sent. Yerim kind of expects some sort of Talk once she gets home today, but maybe she can handle it. Seungwan is not mad anymore, although it took a lot of groveling on Yerim’s part to earn forgiveness.

“You’re my favourite friend, unnie.” Yerim kisses Seungwan in the cheek lightly, unable to express her gratitude any differently, and waves at Chanyeol. She turns to Joy and hears Chanyeol say something, but then Seungwan probably punches him, and he wails and shuts up. Ah, people in love.

Yerim walks up to Joy, who still smiles at her. Joy is very considerate, too, not forcing any unwanted progress on her. Either that, or she just doesn’t want to meet Yerim’s friends too much. Either way, this thing between them is too new, to the point when Yerim isn’t sure if it’s even a thing. She doesn’t really want to share it yet.

Joy is wearing orange lipstick. It looks good on her (then again, what doesn’t), and Yerim thinks that she really wants to taste it on her lips.

She wants to say something nice and charming, but then, being as great in holding a conversation as she is, just goes with, “What are you doing here?” Which is obviously a good way to greet a person you like.

“Heard it is your first day today,” Joy says, shrugging. “Thought I might take you to lunch and then to work. If you want.”

Joy’s voice lack any doubt, implying she is sure Yerim totally wants to. Not that she is wrong. It’s still nice of her to ask, though.

“Only if it’s a date,” Yerim says and, after a moment’s thought, pouts as cutely as she can. If you are working for geondal starting today, might as well ask a girl on a date, why don’t you, right?

Joy blinks, eyes huge, taken by surprise. But then she grins, happy and warm, her eyes catching the sunlight.

“It sure is.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you finished reading this - THANK YOU. You are the best and we love you and this is a gif for you. (Anry)  
> 
> 
> Thank you for reading this far! I hope you were able to enjoy even a bit of this fic. Please do talk to us about it. ♥ (annstis)


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